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[ D] Education fosters the formation of cognitive and non-cognitive skills, and is a key factor in improving individual, firm, and macroeconomic productivity. However, there is a large amount of inequality in access to education resources which is mostly driven by the family background. It is an important objective of education policy to find measures that are capable of reducing this inequality. Children lacking parental care (the "invested adult") during childhood are subject to early and multiple enduring disadvantages, which lead not only to individual suffering, but also to high social costs.
Economists are interested in finding optimal investment strategies for the formation of competencies and their returns over the life cycle. We examine different formal and non-formal learning environments (contexts), particularly within the family, in schools, among friends and in companies. We attach particular importance to early childhood development since this period still needs more research. Private and public investments in education at the individual level are aimed at students who already have a specific educational history. For this reason investments into human capital need to be optimised over the entire life cycle. Due to the cumulative and synergetic nature of human capital formation as well as resource restrictions, it is possible to benefit from economies of scope in education policy.
We aim at providing economic expertise for students, families and decision-makers in education policy who are engaged in finding strategies for the promotion of human capital and skills. Since adequate cognitive and non-cognitive skills are important in our knowledge-based economy, our objective is to examine the complex interactions between individual development, family, school, and the economy in a qualitative, as well as quantitative, manner.
In developing practical policy recommendations, we analyse a large spectrum of topics, for instance:
