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Using data from a Spanish assessment program of fourth-grade pupils, we analyze to what extent using certain teaching practices and materials in class is related to achievement in maths and reading. We distinguish using traditional and modern teaching styles. As a novelty, we measure in-class work using two different sources of information -teacher and students. Our identification strategy relies on between-class within-school variation of teaching styles. We find that modern practices are related to better achievement, specially in reading, while traditional practices, if anything, are detrimental. There are differences depending on the source of information: the magnitude of coefficients is larger when practices are reported by students. These findings are robust to considering alternative definitions of teaching practices. We obtain heterogeneous effects of teaching styles by gender and type of school but only when using students' answers. Our findings highlight the importance of the source of information, teacher or students, to draw adequate conclusions about the effect of teaching style on achievement.

Using data from a Spanish assessment program of fourth-grade pupils, we analyze to what extent using traditional and modern teaching styles in class is related to achievement in maths and reading. As a novelty, we measure in-class work using two dierent sources of information-teacher and students. Our identication strategy relies on between-class within-school variation of teaching styles. We nd that modern practices are related to better achievement, especially in reading, while traditional practices, if anything, are detrimental. There are differences depending on the source of information: the magnitude of coecients is larger when practices are reported by students. These ndings are robust to considering alternative denitions of teaching practices. We obtain heterogeneous eects of teaching styles by gender and type of school but only when using students' answers. Our ndings highlight the importance of the source of information, teacher or students, to draw adequate conclusions about the eect of teaching style on achievement.

We carry out a classical development accounting exercise using data from the "Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies" (PIAAC). PIAAC data, available for 30 upper-middle and high-income countries and nationally representative for the working-age population, allow us to construct a multidimensional measure for the stock of human capital in each country, taking into account years of schooling, job experience, cognitive skills, on-the-job-training, and health. Individual level PIAAC data for the US are then used to estimate the weight of each dimension in the human capital composite by running Mincerian wage regressions. We find that differences in physical capital together with our broad measure of human capital account for 42% of the variance in output per worker, compared to only 27% when proxying human capital by average years of schooling only. Differences in cognitive skills play the largest role while experience and health are of lesser importance.Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through Grant ECO2013-44920-P is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank an anonymous referee for his or her insightful comments.