Recent research concludes that wage returns to cognitive skills have declined in the U.S. We reassess this finding. Using decomposition methods, we document the pivotal role played by dynamic shifts in the distributions of pre-labor market cognitive skills. Our findings show these shifts explain...

We provide evidence that the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth reflects a causal effect of cognitive skills and supports the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking student achievement across countries, over...