Vol. 34 No. 2 (2016): Economía de la educación. Evaluación y políticas

Additional to this introductory paper, the Special Issue contains 5 interesting papers about different topics on Economics of Education.

The first one is presented by Karsten Albæk, titled "A test of the ‘use it or lose it’ hypothesis in labour markets around the world". As the author explains, the aim of the paper is to investigate skills and the use of skills at work in 21 OECD countries for people from 35 to 65 years old. The hypothesis is that "the deterioration of skills with age might be more pronounced in occupations with a limited use of skills than in occupations with more intensive use of these skills". The author obtains that "high-skilled workers have higher measured skills than low-skilled workers and high-skilled workers use skills more at work than low-skilled workers. Measured skills decline from the age of 35 both for high- and low-skilled workers at about the same pace. The use of skills at work also declines from the age of 35 for both high-skilled workers and low-skilled workers at about the same pace, and at about the same rate as measured skills", independently of the use of cognitive skills at work. So, the evidence obtained does not support the ‘use it or lose it’ hypothesis.