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A favoured argument in defence of tariffs, quotas and other trade barriers is to shield emerging (or ‘infant’) industries from foreign competition during a period of establishment and early growth. By temporarily raising the cost of imports, governments can give an industry breathing space to build up a critical mass of capacity and talent, which […]
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Alongside literacy, numeracy is a key pillar of education and progress. Basic arithmetic skills are in essence a requirement for modern-day life, while more sophisticated techniques are fundamental to any number of scientific and technological advances we nowadays take for granted. In a new working paper, Danna, Iori and Mina consider the contribution of mathematics […]
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Today, secondary schooling is a natural pathway for generations of young people. It was not always so. Historically, education was an elite pursuit. And even as public education systems with compulsory primary schooling began to take root (for much of the developed world, in the nineteenth century), high school remained the domain of a relative […]
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That people sometimes err when recalling their age is not uncommon. (I have even been guilty of it myself!) The problem is more acute in historical settings, and even in developing countries today: individuals with limited access to education are less able to calculate their age. An observed tendency is for innumerate people to round […]
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A useful starting point for assessing the effect of a shock or intervention is a basis of comparison: those affected by a change versus those not affected. But what if everyone is potentially affected in some way? What if there is no obvious benchmark against which differences can be evaluated? One answer is simply to […]
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Category: Literature summary
Simple overviews of interesting and relevant research, including discussion of different aspects of human capital and long-term growth, as well as insights on econometric and other analytical methods.