Education and Growth: Where All the Education Went

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Date
2016-02-01Author
Breton, Theodore R.
Siegel Breton, Andrew
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Abstract
We investigate why the economics literature often finds a negative relationship between
increased schooling and GDP growth over short periods. We show that increases in GDP in 98 countries during five-year intervals are correlated with the increases in adults´ average
schooling during the prior 40 years. We find that an additional year of schooling of the work
force raised GDP by 7% on average during 1980-2005, but its initial effect on GDP was much smaller. The delayed effect of increased schooling on national productivity explains why recent increases in schooling cannot explain near-term increases in GDP.
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