Education reforms and adult skills: Evidence from Estonia

Kieran Byrne and Alexander Plekhanov

Economics of Education Review, 2021, vol. 82, issue C

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of education reforms in Estonia in the 1990s on adult skills using the OECD PIAAC surveys. Estonia implemented extensive education reforms in the early 1990s throughout Estonian-speaking schools while Russian-speaking schools were exposed to less comprehensive reforms, which were implemented later. A large minority of Estonia’s population at the time was enrolled in Russian-speaking schools providing a unique opportunity to measure the impact of education reforms on literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills among adults by comparing improvements in PIAAC performance among Estonian and Russian speakers. Difference-in-difference estimation suggests that the reforms led to an adult skill dividend of around 15 to 30 percent of a standard deviation. This translates to a wage (productivity) premium of around 5 to 12 percent.

Keywords: Education reforms; Adult skills; Productivity growth; Human capital; PIAAC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:82:y:2021:i:c:s027277572100025x

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2021.102106

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