Research Blog

At a time when students, parents and governments are looking with concern at ever increasing levels of student loan debt, the returns to schooling seem to be declining, on average, at least slightly. The value one gets from an education, in terms of future earnings, has been decreasing over time.

Most research on in the economics of education has focused on educational outcomes, especially test scores. In the past decade, however, a growing literature has begun to analyse the impact on overall well being later in life.

Ever since charter schools were first introduced in the American education landscape in the early 1990s, they have been extremely controversial.

Apprenticeships are widely seen as key to rebalancing the economy and tackling youth unemployment, but over many years successive governments have failed to engage sufficient interest from employers to meet demand.

Since the 1980s, the use of accountability regimes has grown significantly worldwide. Theoretically, accountability could be one way to make up for the lack of extrinsic incentives to improve outcomes among schools by using carrots and sticks.