This paper describes the construction of series of educational attainment of the adult population in a sample of 22 OECD countries covering the period 1960-2010. These series are a revised and extended version of the data set described in de la Fuente and Doménech (2002).

We survey a number of papers that have focused on the construction of cross-country data sets on average years of schooling. We discuss the construction of the different series, compare their profiles and construct indicators of their information content. The discussion focuses on a sample of...