This is not simply because smart people people who would do well no matter what tend to graduate from college. Education itself can make a difference. A long line of economic research, by Julie Berry Cullen, James Heckman, Philip Oreopoulos and many...

Economists have generally thought that the answer was not much. Great teachers and early childhood programs can have a big short-term effect. But the impact tends to fade. By junior high and high school, children who had excellent early schooling do lit

This means it’s more important than ever to pick our public investments wisely. A new paper by Flavio Cunha, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, and James Heckman, a Nobel Laureate at the University of Chicago, documents the wisdom of one...

But the payoff comes when my grown children let me live with them when I am old. I suppose childless adults end up in nursing homes, living with strangers. How can I bet against my namesake? Besides, he’s never been wrong. Interesting finding by James...

GED testing program does little good for the substantial majority of its takers in generating economic opportunity directly and in opening the door to post-secondary education," according to the paper produced for the National Bureau of Economic Research.