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...

We explain why means-tested college tuition and means-tested government grants to college students can be efficient. The critical idea is that attending college is both an investment good and a consumption good. If education has a consumption benefit and tuition is uniform, the marginal rich...

The perpetual inventory method used for the construction of education data per country leads to systematic measurement error. This paper analyses the effect of this measurement error on GDP regressions. There is a systematic difference in the education level between census data and observations...

Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which...

The role of improved schooling, a central part of most development strategies, has become controversial because expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions. This paper reviews the role of education in promoting economic well-being, with a particular focus on...

This paper introduces money into an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth. The model, due to Docquier et al. (2007), exhibits a positive intergenerational externality which precludes its laissez-fair equilibrium to be optimal even if the government can control the level of...

In this paper we study the quantitative macroeconomic effects of public education spending in USA for the post-war period. Using comparable measures of human and physical capital, from Jorgenson and Fraumeni (1989, 1992a,b), we calibrate a standard dynamic general equilibrium model where human...

This study empirically analyses on the basis of a panel of grant requests to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF. From the results it can be concluded, that the different scientific disciplines react in very different ways to the institutional and financial framework conditions set by...

This paper extends the standard human capital model with real options. Real options influence investment behavior when risky investments in human capital are irreversible and individuals can affect the timing of the investment. Option values make individuals more reluctant to invest in human...

Should a redistributive government optimally subsidize education to provoke a reduction in the skill premium through general equilibrium effects on wages? To answer this question, this paper studies optimal linear and non-linear redistributive income taxes and education subsidies in two-type...