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...

We investigate whether a causal interpretation of the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth is appropriate and whether cross-country evidence supports a case for the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking...

Human capital plays a key role in fostering technology adoption, the major source of economic growth in developing countries. Consequently, enhancing the level of human capital should be a matter of public concern. The present paper studies public education incentives in an environment in which...

This paper analyzes a framework where policymakers decide how to spend public resources on physical capital and labor in order to produce two public goods. Candidate policymakers disagree about which goods to produce, and may alternate in office due to elections. When capital and labor are...

This paper investigates the effects of oil financed public investment on poverty using a dynamic multisectoral general equilibrium model featuring inter-temporal productivity spillovers, which may exhibit a sector-specific and regional bias. In general, the results bear out the expectation that...

Maddison's international panel data show that technically it was the faster growth rate of the US economy that led to its overtaking the UK as economic superpower. We explore the contributing factors. Identifying the land-grant colleges system triggered by the 1862/1890 Morrill Acts (MAs) as a...

Critics of international student comparisons argue that results may be influenced by differences in the extent to which countries adequately sample their entire student populations. In this research note, we show that larger exclusion and non-response rates are related to better country average...

In Indonesia, fiscal decentralisation has been implemented for two decades, and it is expected that the regions will have a sufficient level of independence to increase economic growth and welfare. This study investigates the influence of fiscal decentralisation and human development on regional...

Sarah Gust führte diese Studie während ihrer Tätigkeit am ifo Institut durch. Die Studie wurde im September 2024 abgeschlossen und als Dissertation an der Volkswirtschaftlichen Fakultät der LMU München angenommen. Sie besteht aus drei eigenständigen empirischen Essays, die...