Formal schooling increases earnings and provides other individual benefits. However, societal benefits of education may exceed individual benefits. Research finds that increased average education levels in an area are correlated with higher earnings, even for locals with relatively little...

This paper estimates the association of demographic and educational changes with earnings and returns to schooling of male workers in Brazil and Mexico. Our analysis takes into account demographic, educational, and economic variations within each country over time, using Demographic Censuses...

Even in OECD countries, where an increasing proportion of the workforce has a university degree, the value of basic skills in literacy and numeracy remains high. Indeed, in some countries the return for such skills, in the form of higher wages, is sufficiently large to suggest that they are in...

Most public expenditure on childcare in the US is made through a federal program, the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), established as part of landmark welfare reform legislation in 1996. The main goal of the reform was to increase employment and reduce welfare dependence among low-income...

A non-trivial portion of traffic fatalities involve alcohol or illicit drugs. But does the use of alcohol and illegal substances - which is linked to depression, suicide, and criminal activity - also reduce academic performance? Recent studies suggest that drinking alcohol has a negative, if...

For the 65 colleges and universities that participate in the Power Five athletic conferences (Pac 12, Big 10, SEC, ACC, and Big 12), the football and men’s basketball teams are highly visible. While these programs generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue annually, very few of them turn...

Erhöht der frühere Besuch des Kindergartens die Bildungsmobilität zwischen Kind und Eltern? Wir nutzen Schweizer Daten, um dieser Frage nachzugehen. Frühschulische Politik wird in der Schweiz auf kantonaler Ebene geregelt, so dass das Kindergartensystem zwischen den Kantonen unterschiedlich...

This article investigates the biases involved in estimating the effects of teacher attributes on school’s performance. The study was performed for Chilean educational system, where student distribution is differentiated by schools and teachers are not randomly assigned to them. Findings showed...

In a prolific and illustrious career, the late Gary Becker (1930 - 2014) developed what he would later call "the economic approach to human behaviour". One of the most significant strands of that research was that which focused on human capital, occuping a significant part of his career,...

Access to selective universities is highly coveted because of the perception that attending one provides opportunities otherwise difficult to obtain. To broaden access to the state's flagship universities in a manner that does not rely on conventional affirmative action, Texas passed the Top Ten...