This paper analyzes the effects of increased academic standards on both average achievement levels and on equality of opportunity. The five policies evaluated are: (1) universal Curriculum-Based External Exit Exam Systems, (2) voluntary curriculum-based external exit exam systems with partial...

This paper explores how the specification of the earnings function impacts the optimal tax treatment of human capital. If education is complementary to labor effort, education should be subsidized to offset tax distortions on labor supply. However, if most of the education is enjoyed by high...

Trends in skill bias and greater turbulence in modern labor markets put wages and employment prospects of unskilled workers under pressure. Weak incentives to utilize and maintain skills over the life-cycle become manifest with the ageing of the population. Reinvention of human capital policies...

: The euro crisis has threatened the balance of social structures, through the impoverishment of the middle class, in almost all countries of the Old Continent. This trend has not only posed a threat to social cohesion, but it also threats the very nature of the so-called Western-style...

The main objective of the paper is to provide an estimation of the impact of the investments in education and science in Bulgaria, financed by the European structural instruments. It provides net impact assessment as of end of 2012 as well as projections of potential effect until 2020. The...

Background: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of eight goals and corresponding indicators that were agreed to following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration in September 2000 by leaders of 189 countries. The goals state specific objectives for the world to...

Student achievement has been identified as an important contributor to economic growth. This paper investigates the relationship between redistributive government activities and investment in human capital measured by student performance in international comparative tests in Mathematics and...

This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on capital and labor incomes in a life-cyclemodel of human capital investment, financial savings, and labor supply with heteroge-nous individuals. A dual income tax with a positive marginal tax rate on not onlylabor income but also capital income is...

School-based management programs aim to improve education outcomes by involving parents in allocation decisions about external funds transferred to the school. This paper explores the effects of two school-based management programs on parental investment in schools via voluntary contributions....

In the past decades the involvement of local experts in the planning and evaluation of development programs has steadily increased. Ownership of development planning is propagated as major aim of bilateral and international development co-operation. Yet, the quality and performance of many local...