James J. Heckman - Böcker

Achievement tests play an important role in modern societies. They are used to evaluate schools, to assign students to tracks within schools, and to identify weaknesses in student knowledge. The GED is used to grant the status of high school graduate to anyone who passes the test. Recipients currently account for twelve percent of all high school credentials issued each year in the United States. But do achievement tests predict success in life? With The Myth of Achievement Tests, James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars explore how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, they show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health. The differences in success are driven by character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity that achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture.Not only are these skills important in predicting a variety of life outcomes, they can be measured and they can be taught. Using the GED as a case study, the authors explore what achievement tests miss and call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue.

Analyzing the effects of regulation and deregulation on Latin American labor markets, Law and Employment joins the ongoing debate about the virtues and costs of legislating mandatory benefits for workers. Of the numerous labor regulations that were altered or created in Latin America during the last thirty years, many have had unintended and far-reaching results. Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman, and Carmen Pages document the behavior of firms attempting to stay in business and be competitive while facing the high costs of complying with these labor laws. They challenge the prevailing view that labor market regulations affect only the distribution of labor incomes and have little or no impact on efficiency or the performance of labor markets. This volume shows that mandated benefits reduce employment, have a disruptive impact on turnover rates and labor market flexibility, promote inequality, and discriminate against marginal workers. Along with in-depth studies of Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, Law and Employment provides comparative analysis from a range of European countries and the United States, while also covering important changes in reg

Achievement tests play an important role in modern societies. They are used to evaluate schools, to assign students to tracks within schools, and to identify weaknesses in student knowledge. The GED is an achievement test used to grant the status of high school graduate to anyone who passes it. GED recipients currently account for 12 percent of all high school credentials issued each year in the United States. But do achievement tests predict success in life? The Myth of Achievement Tests shows that achievement tests like the GED fail to measure important life skills. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars offer an in-depth exploration of how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, the authors show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health.The authors show that the differences in success between GED recipients and high school graduates are driven by character skills. Achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity. These skills are important in predicting a variety of life outcomes. They can be measured, and they can be taught. Using the GED as a case study, the authors explore what achievement tests miss and show the dangers of an educational system based on them. They call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue. Contributors Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison Andrew Halpern-Manners, Indiana University Bloomington Paul A. LaFontaine, Federal Communications Commission Janice H. Laurence, Temple University Lois M. Quinn, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Pedro L. Rodriguez, Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration John Robert Warren, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Global Perspectives on the Rule of Law is a collection of original research on the rule of law from a panel of leading economists, political scientists, legal scholars, sociologists and historians. The chapters critically analyze the meaning and foundations of the rule of law and its relationship to economic and democratic development, challenging many of the underlying assumptions guiding the burgeoning field of rule of law development. The combination of jurisprudential, quantitative, historical/comparative, and theoretical analyses seeks to chart a new course in scholarship on the rule of law: the volume as a whole takes seriously the role of law in pursuing global justice, while confronting the complexity of instituting the rule of law and delivering its promised benefits.Written for scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers, Global Perspectives on the Rule of Law offers a unique combination of jurisprudential and empirical research that will be provocative and relevant to those who are attempting to understand and advance the rule of law globally. The chapters progress from broad questions regarding current rule of development efforts and the concept of rule of law to more specific issues pertaining to economic and democratic development. Specific countries, such as China, India, and seventeenth century England and the Netherlands, serve as case studies in some chapters, while broad global surveys feature in other chapters. Indeed, this impressive scope of research ushers in the next generation of scholarship in this area.

Global Perspectives on the Rule of Law is a collection of original research on the rule of law from a panel of leading economists, political scientists, legal scholars, sociologists and historians. The chapters critically analyse the meaning and foundations of the rule of law and its relationship to economic and democratic development, challenging many of the underlying assumptions guiding the burgeoning field of rule of law development. The combination of jurisprudential, quantitative, historical/comparative, and theoretical analyses seeks to chart a new course in scholarship on the rule of law: the volume as a whole takes seriously the role of law in pursuing global justice, while confronting the complexity of instituting the rule of law and delivering its promised benefits.Written for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers, Global Perspectives offers a unique combination of jurisprudential and empirical research that will be provocative and relevant to those who are attempting to understand and advance the rule of law globally. The chapters progress from broad questions regarding current rule of development efforts and the concept of rule of law to more specific issues pertaining to economic and democratic development. Specific countries, such as China, India, and seventeenth-century England and The Netherlands, serve as case studies in some chapters, while broad global surveys feature in other chapters. Indeed, this impressive scope of research ushers in the next generation of scholarship in this area.

As conceived by the founders of the Econometric Society, econometrics is a field that uses economic theory and statistical methods to address empirical problems in economics. It is a tool for empirical discovery and policy analysis. The chapters in this volume embody this vision and either implement it directly or provide the tools for doing so. This vision is not shared by those who view econometrics as a branch of statistics rather than as a distinct field of knowledge that designs methods of inference from data based on models of human choice behavior and social interactions. All of the essays in this volume and its companion volume 6B offer guidance to the practitioner on how to apply the methods they discuss to interpret economic data. The authors of the chapters are all leading scholars in the fields they survey and extend.Part of the renowned Handbooks in Economics SeriesUpdates and expands the exisiting Handbook of Econometrics volumesAn invaluable reference written by some of the world's leading econometricians

As conceived by the founders of the Econometric Society, econometrics is a field that uses economic theory and statistical methods to address empirical problems in economics. It is a tool for empirical discovery and policy analysis. The chapters in this volume embody this vision and either implement it directly or provide the tools for doing so. This vision is not shared by those who view econometrics as a branch of statistics rather than as a distinct field of knowledge that designs methods of inference from data based on models of human choice behavior and social interactions. All of the essays in this volume and its companion volume 6A offer guidance to the practitioner on how to apply the methods they discuss to interpret economic data. The authors of the chapters are all leading scholars in the fields they survey and extend.Handbook of Econometrics is now available online at ScienceDirect - full-text online from volume 1 onwards.Part of the renowned Handbooks in Economics SeriesUpdates and expands the exisiting Handbook of Econometrics volumesAn invaluable reference written by some of the world's leading econometricians