Human Capital and Growth : The Recovered Role of Education Systems

Recent empirical studies question conventional wisdom about the importance of education to growth. These results partly reflect how international differences in the quality of education systems--defined by the systems' ability to produce one marginal unit of productive human capital--are not taken into account. The author estimates neoclassical growth models on panel data in which the elasticity of human capital depends stochastically on different characteristics of the education system. Among characteristics that explain differences in quality are education infrastructure, the initial endowment of human capital, and the ability to distribute educational services equally among potential students. Giving priority to primary education for all rather than secondary education to a few is more likely to foster growth (for the same fiscal burden). But parallel actions are also probably needed--for example, promoting institutions that motivate skilled workers to spend time on growth-promoting activities and encouraging the inflow of foreign technologies to maximize the social return to public investment in education.

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Dessus, Sebastien
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2001-07
Subjects:	AVERAGE PRODUCTIVITY, AVERAGE SHARE, CAPITA INCOME GROWTH, CAPITAL ACCUMULATION, CAPITAL FORMATION, CAPITAL STOCK, CONDITIONAL CONVERGENCE, CONVENTIONAL WISDOM, CONVERGENCE DEBATE, CONVERGENCE EQUATIONS, CONVERGENCE HYPOTHESIS, COUNTRY DATA, COUNTRY- SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS, COVARIANCE MATRIX, CROSS-COUNTRY DATA, CROSS-SECTIONAL DATA, DATA SET, DEPENDENT VARIABLE, DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, DYNAMIC EQUATIONS, ECONOMETRICS, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, ECONOMIC GROWTH, ECONOMIC REVIEW, ECONOMIC THEORIES, ECONOMICS, EDUCATION LEVEL, EDUCATION SYSTEMS, EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT, ELASTICITY, EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, EMPIRICAL STUDIES, EMPLOYMENT EQUATIONS, ENDOGENOUS GROWTH, ENDOGENOUS VARIABLE, ESTIMATED COEFFICIENT, ESTIMATED ELASTICITY, ESTIMATION METHOD, EXOGENOUS VARIABLE, EXOGENOUS VARIABLES, EXTERNALITY, FIXED EFFECTS, GDP, GINI INDEX, GROWTH DETERMINANTS, GROWTH EMPIRICS, GROWTH MODEL, GROWTH MODELS, GROWTH PROCESS, GROWTH RATE, GROWTH RATES, HIGH COST, HUMAN CAPITAL, HUMAN CAPITAL FORMATION, INCOME, INCOME CONVERGENCE, INCOME GROWTH, INCOME GROWTH RATE, INEQUALITY, INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS, INVESTMENT RATE, LABOR FORCE, LONG RUN, LONG-RUN GROWTH, MARGINAL PRODUCTIVITY, MARKET IMPERFECTIONS, MEASUREMENT ERROR, MONETARY ECONOMICS, NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP, NEOCLASSICAL GROWTH, NEOCLASSICAL GROWTH MODELS, NETWORK EXTERNALITIES, 0 HYPOTHESIS, PER CAPITA GROWTH, PER CAPITA INCOME, PER CAPITA INCOMES, PHYSICAL CAPITAL, POLICY RESEARCH, POPULATION GROWTH, POSITIVE EFFECT, POSITIVE EFFECTS, POSITIVE IMPACT, POVERTY TRAPS, PRIMARY EDUCATION, PRODUCTION FUNCTION, PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS, PRODUCTIVITY, PUBLIC EXPENDITURES, PUBLIC INVESTMENT, PUBLIC SECTOR, PURCHASING POWER, RAPID INCREASE, RENT SEEKING, SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS, SIGNIFICANT IMPACT, SKILLED WORKERS, SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, SOCIAL MARGINAL COST, STANDARD DEVIATION, TECHNICAL PROGRESS, UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION,
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/07/1490187/human-capital-growth-recovered-role-education-systems https://hdl.handle.net/10986/19583
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