TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cascio,Elizabeth
AU  - Clark,Damon
AU  - Gordon,Nora
TI  - Education and the Age Profile of Literacy into Adulthood
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14073
PY  - 2008
Y2  - June 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14073
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14073.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Elizabeth U. Cascio
Department of Economics
Dartmouth College
6106 Rockefeller Hall
Hanover, NH 03755
Tel: (603) 646-4096
Fax: (603) 646-2122
E-Mail: elizabeth.u.cascio@dartmouth.edu

Damon Clark
134 Martha van Renssalaer Hall
Policy Analysis and Management
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Tel: 607-255-4821
E-Mail: dc738@cornell.edu

Nora E. Gordon
Georgetown Public Policy Institute
306 Old North
37th and O Streets NW
Washington, DC 20057
Tel: 202/687-6756
E-Mail: neg24@georgetown.edu
AB  - It is widely documented that U.S. students score below their OECD counterparts on international achievement tests, but it is less commonly known that ultimately, U.S. native adults catch up.  In this paper, we explore institutional explanations for differences in the evolution of literacy over young adulthood across wealthy OECD countries.  We use an international cross-section of micro data from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS); these data show that cross-country differences in the age profile of literacy skills are not due to differences in individual family background, and that relatively high rates of university graduation appears to explain a good part of the U.S. "catch up."  The cross-sectional design of the IALS prevents us from controlling for cohort effects, but we use a variety of other data sources to show that cohort effects are likely small in comparison to the differences by age revealed in the IALS.  We go on to discuss how particular institutional features of secondary and postsecondary education correlate, at the country level, with higher rates of university completion.
ER  -