1 Rethinking cause and effect: Analyzing economic growth and PISA scores over a period of fifteen years Yariv Feniger and Michael Atia Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Abstract The notion that scores from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) can predict the economic future of a nation is common among policymakers, journalists and the wider public. This chapter aims at rethinking this notion by examining evidence from the OECD's PISA study. We first show that PISA 2000 scores fail to predict economic growth. We then show that countries that enjoyed an increase in PISA scores experienced economic growth prior to this improvement, and countries that showed losses in PISA scores suffered from economic recession before the decline in educational achievement. ILSAs' results, thus, appear to respond to economic changes rather than predict them. Introduction OECD studies show that higher scores in literacy tests are accompanied by higher per capita income and higher productivity (OECD, 2011a, p. 25). This quote from a booklet published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for its 50 th anniversary presents a common view about the relationship between scores from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) of student achievement and national economic prosperity. The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has contributed to the acceptance of the popular notion that ILSAs' results can predict the