Whether targeted foundational instruction yields broad, long-term human capital gains is central to education policy but largely untested. We provide causal evidence from Zambia's government-run foundational skills program in public primary schools. After two years, a randomized trial shows the...

The main purpose of this study is to assess the effect of current public expenditure on education and human capital on economic growth in Central America between 1992 and 2021. In this context, data on education spending and human capital for Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and...

We study the relative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and interaction of family- and school-based learning interventions using a randomized controlled trial in Colombia that assigns children to a parental engagement program, a teacher professional development program, both, or a control...

This paper examines how parental migration interacts with unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) for education by analyzing Indonesia's Smart Indonesia Program (PIP), which provides educational grants to children from poor households. Using a difference-in-differences approach and nationally...

We examine whether restricting temporary contracts increases firms' investment in worker training, exploiting Spain's 2022 labour market reform. Using 3.1 million online job postings from 2018 to 2024, we implement a difference-in-differences design that leverages pre-reform variation in...

We examine whether restricting temporary contracts increases firms' investment in worker training, exploiting Spain's 2022 labour market reform. Using 3.1 million online job postings from 2018 to 2024, we implement a difference-in-differences design that leverages prereform variation in reliance...

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education is vital for Indonesia's technological progress and economic competitiveness. Yet, female students remain underrepresented in STEM pathways despite consistently strong academic performance. Evidence from Bandung city junior...

Decline in the school-age population due to demographic changes presents an opportunity to redirect resources within the education sector to improve access and quality. However, the experiences of countries that have gone through similar demographic transitions show that a shrinking student...

China's One-Child Policy (OCP) restricted most couples to a single birth, leading to a rapid increase in the prevalence of only children. Using longitudinal data and a regression discontinuity design around the policy's start, we estimate the effects on grandchildren's human capital. We find...

This study examines the long-term impact of childhood exposure to Glacier Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) on adult human capital outcomes in the High Mountain Asia (HMA) region. Using historical GLOF data and geospatial mapping of downstream flood pathways, we identify treatment and control groups...

This study investigates the impact of inflation on human capital investment decisions. Using a specially designed survey we estimate the causal effect of recent price level increases on the graduation plans of over 1,200 U.S. university students. We find that inflation caused over half of the...

This study characterizes optimal policy in an endogenous growth model where heterogeneous individuals choose between entering the workforce as unskilled labor or pursuing education to become skilled. In the decentralized economy, monopolists produce goods using both labor types. They purchase...

This paper characterizes optimal education and population policies within a continuous-time overlapping generations (OLG) framework where fertility, schooling duration, and health expenditures are endogenous. In this model, mortality risk is driven by a negative congestion effect from population...

There has been considerable recent debate about the terms of 'Plan 2' student loans, which were issued to 11 cohorts of English undergraduate university students: those who started their courses between academic years 2012/13 and 2022/23.1 We have written before about how these student loans...

How did the US become a land of opportunity? Previous historical research on intergenerational mobility has focused on father-son income correlations, masking the role of mothers. We introduce a new mobility measure that incorporates both parents’ human capital, develop a latent variable...

The Global Gateway is considered a key instrument of EU development cooperation. Introduced in 2021, it was announced as a 'win-win' strategy for both, the EU's competitiveness agenda and developing countries' strive for sustainable development. The Global Gateway epitomises the current shifts...

We estimate the causal effect of access to clean water sources on educational outcomes in Indonesia. Using the longitudinal Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) panel dataset, which follows the same individuals from 1993 to 2014, and applying household fixed effects allows us to identify the...

We construct two new large-scale datasets to measure relative and upward educational mobility by sex, race, class, and childhood county of residence for cohorts born in 1910-1919 and 1982-1997. We show that both relative and upward educational mobility rose over the 20th century, with...

This study examines how parenting styles predict children's lifetime outcomes. Using a Swedish dataset which combines rich survey information on parenting styles with administrative records tracking children over five decades, we find that authoritarian parenting is negatively associated with...

This study examines how parenting styles predict children’s lifetime outcomes. Using a Swedish dataset which combines rich survey information on parenting styles with administrative records tracking children over five decades, we find that authoritarian parenting is negatively associated with...

This study investigates the impact of inflation on human capital investment decisions. Using a specially designed survey we estimate the causal effect of recent price level increases on the graduation plans of over 1,200 U.S. university students. We find that inflation caused over half of the...

We estimate the causal effect of access to clean water sources on educational outcomes in Indonesia. Using the longitudinal Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) panel dataset, which follows the same individuals from 1993 to 2014, and applying household fixed effects allows us to identify the...

Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) encompasses publicly regulated services that provide education and childcare for children from birth until the start of primary education. ECEC plays a critical role in fostering children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development, enhancing school...

We study the long-run effects of a large public expansion of pre-primary education in Argentina. Between 1993 and 1999, the federal government financed the construction of new preschool classrooms targeted to departments with low baseline enrollment and high poverty, creating roughly 186,000...

We evaluate the Education Maintenance Allowance, a large conditional cash transfer scheme that paid low-income teenagers in England to remain in education beyond age 16. Using the staggered national roll-out of the programme and linked administrative data tracking education, earnings, welfare...

We examine how shocks to migration opportunities affect schooling outcomes in origin communities. We focus on the migration between Mexico and the United States, and exploit the expansion of the Secure Communities program in the US - a federal datasharing program that substantially increased the...

This study examines how parenting styles predict children's lifetime outcomes. Using a Swedish dataset which combines rich survey information on parenting styles with administrative records tracking children over five decades, we find that authoritarian parenting is negatively associated with...

This paper examines whether Ghana's education reforms have increased intergenerational education mobility. Using the newly constructed Ghana Education and Labour Series-a harmonized dataset combining multiple rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey-we track intergenerational education...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes aim to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty by fostering human capital accumulation among children in vulnerable households. However, due to data limitations, evidence on their long-run effects remains scarce. This paper contributes to...

This study examines the career aspirations of economically disadvantaged Filipino children participating in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the Philippines' flagship conditional cash transfer program. Using data from 9,958 children aged 10 to 25 collected through the Fourth Wave...

Labour productivity has been on a declining trend in the Caribbean. An examination of this trend revealed a growing concern of skills mismatch in the labour market. At the same time, youth unemployment is high in many countries, with young women and girls twice as likely not to be in education,...

This paper explores the relationship between geographic mortality differentials and human capital investment patterns in the Malthusian setup of 19th-century Armenia. We examine how variations in altitude correlate with mortality rates, human capital accumulation, and fertility decisions. Using...

In this paper we examine whether additional schooling can offset genetic disadvantages in longevity. Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and polygenic scores for longevity, we study heterogeneity in the effects of education on panel attrition – a proxy that closely...

This paper studies families' capacity to pay for college in the United States, focusing on changes over time and differences by race and socioeconomic status. I use data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) to document changes over time in the Expected Family Contribution...

The 1924 Immigration Act excluded immigrants from economically developing countries to the point of their near total exclusion. Forty years later, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act eliminated most discriminatory county-of-origin barriers. America's doors opened and immigration from...

Fueling debates about the "quality" of immigrants from economically developing countries, empirical studies based on a well-respected methodology conclude that post-1965 immigrant men have low initial earnings and sluggish earnings growth. This methodology is based on flawed assumptions (Duleep,...