Description: The editors combine recent data with new methodologies to examine questions from diverse perspectives. School choice and school competition, educator incentives, the college premium, and other considerations help make sense of the investments and returns associated with education.
Brief description: Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He is internationally recognized for his economic analysis of educational issues, and his research has had broad influence on education policy in both developed and developing countries. He received the Yidan Prize for Education Research in 2021. He is the author of numerous widely-cited studies on the effects of class size reduction, school accountability, teacher effectiveness, and other topics. He was the first to research teacher effectiveness by measuring students' learning gains, which forms the conceptual basis for using value-added measures to evaluate teachers and schools, now a widely adopted practice. His recent book with Ludger Woessmann, The Knowledge Capital of Nations: Education and the Economics of Growth summarizes research establishing the close links between countries' long-term rates of economic growth and the skill levels of their populations. He has authored or edited twenty-five books along with over 300 articles. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and completed his Ph.D. in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hanushek@stanford.edu; http: //hanushek.stanford.edu/
Review Quotes:
"2011 PROSE Award Honorable Mention for Economics"
"The increased importance of knowledge, skills, and information in the modern economy means that human capital and education will be even more important in the future than it has been during the past 50 years. ... The articles in these handbook volumes convey some of the excitement that continues in research on the economics of education." --Gary S. Becker, University of Chicago
"This important volume follows soon after volume 3, so together they provide up-to-date expert evaluations of the latest research findings on the economics of education, including some significant topics that are little discussed by economists. There are chapters on how psychological behavior affects economic decisions; the relation between educational achievement on one hand and criminal activity, good health, and political participation on the other; and the relation between education and the process of economic development. Other chapters address more familiar issues, such as education and migration, the use of school vouchers, overall school financing, and performance pay for teachers. One chapter considers an intriguing issue--whether there has been, or can be, over education. Most readers will appreciate the chapter on the determinants of college achievement. Each of the nine long essays comes with an unusually extensive bibliography. Of strong value for researchers and professional educators. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections." --CHOICE, August 2012, Vol. 49, No. 11, page 153