Education for Growth: Why and for Whom?

Journal of Economic Literature, 2001, vol. 39, issue 4, 1101-1136

Abstract: This paper summarizes and tries to reconcile evidence from the microeconometric and empirical macro growth literatures on the effect of schooling on income and GDP growth. Much microeconometric evidence suggests that education is an important causal determinant of income for individuals within countries. At a national level, however, recent studies have found that increases in educational attainment are unrelated to economic growth. This discrepancy appears to be a result of the high rate of measurement error in first-differenced cross-country education data. After accounting for measurement error, the effect of changes in educational attainment on income growth in cross-country data is at least as great as microeconometric estimates of the rate of return to years of schooling. Another finding of the macro growth literature--that economic growth depends positively on the initial stock of human capital--is not robust when the assumption of a constant-coefficient model is relaxed.

JEL-codes: I21 J24 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.39.4.1101
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1024)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jel.39.4.1101 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Education for Growth: Why and For Whom? (2000)
Working Paper: Education for Growth: Why and For Whom? (2000)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:39:y:2001:i:4:p:1101-1136

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Literature is currently edited by Steven Durlauf

More articles in Journal of Economic Literature from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().