The paper provides a comprehensive assessment of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of human capital accumulated by the Russian economy. Using the cross-country perspective it investigates both educational attainment and quality of education of the Russian workforce. Labor market...

Increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education is found, using quantile regression. This trend is related to rising overqualification. We distinguish between and validate measures of Real and Formal overqualification, according to whether it is or is not accompanied by...

This paper shows a somehow counterintuitive result: an increase in the exam difficulty may reduce the average quality (productivity) of selected individuals. Since the exam does not verify all skills, when its standard rises, candidates with relatively low skills emphasized in the test and high...