IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uab/wprdea/wpdea1802.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Higher education and economic development: can public funding restrain the returns from tertiary education?

Author

Listed:
  • Paola Azar Dufrechou

    (Departament d'Economia Aplicada, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; Institute of Economics, Universidad de la República-Uruguay)

Abstract

This paper examines whether the contribution of tertiary education to economic growth and income per capita depends on the structure of public education budgets. The analysis resorts to a panel of 41 countries over the period 1970-2010. The empirical approach is based on system GMM regressions and Hierarchical Linear Models, which allow dealing with endogeneity concerns and parameter heterogeneity. The estimates show that budget imbalances against basic schooling seem to undermine the achievement of productivity gains from higher education.

Suggested Citation

  • Paola Azar Dufrechou, 2018. "Higher education and economic development: can public funding restrain the returns from tertiary education?," Working Papers wpdea1802, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    • Handle: RePEc:uab:wprdea:wpdea1802
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ecap.uab.cat/RePEc/doc/wpdea1802.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    2. Ernesto Talvi & Pablo Serra & Nancy Birdsall & Howard Pack & Andrés Solimano & Barbara Stallings & Michael Gavin & Richard H. Sabot & Nora Lustig & Humberto Petrei & Sebastián Edwards & Ricardo Hausma, 1997. "Pathways to Growth: Comparing East Asia and Latin America," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 65998 edited by Nancy Birdsall & Frederick Jaspersen, February.
    3. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    4. Talvi, Ernesto & Serra, Pablo & Birdsall, Nancy & Pack, Howard & Solimano, Andrés & Stallings, Barbara & Gavin, Michael & Sabot, Richard H. & Lustig, Nora & Petrei, Humberto & Edwards, Sebastián & Hau, 1997. "Pathways to Growth: Comparing East Asia and Latin America," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 377, December.
    5. Michael J. Boskin & Lawrence J. Lau, 2000. "Generalized Solow-Neutral Technical Progress and Postwar Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 8023, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Stephen Bond & Anke Hoeffler, 2001. "GMM Estimation of Empirical Growth Models," Economics Series Working Papers 2001-W21, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    7. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    8. Benhabib, Jess & Spiegel, Mark M., 2005. "Human Capital and Technology Diffusion," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 935-966, Elsevier.
    9. Ang, James B. & Madsen, Jakob B. & Rabiul Islam, Md., 2011. "The effects of human capital composition on technological convergence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 465-476, September.
    10. Castelló-Climent, Amparo & Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop, 2013. "Mass education or a minority well educated elite in the process of growth: The case of India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 303-320.
    11. Cantoni, Davide & Yuchtman, Noam, 2012. "Educational Content, Educational Institutions and Economic Development: Lessons from History," Discussion Papers in Economics 12691, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    12. repec:idb:brikps:65998 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Stephen Bond & Anke Hoeffler & Jonathan Temple, 2001. "GMM Estimation of Empirical Growth Models," Economics Papers 2001-W21, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    14. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    15. Philippe Aghion, 2009. "Growth and Education," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 27936.
    16. Ravallion, M. & Datt, G., 1991. "Growth and Redistribution Components of Changes in Poverty Measures," Papers 83, World Bank - Living Standards Measurement.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sara Barcenilla-Visús & Carmen López-Pueyo, 2018. "Inside Europe: human capital and economic growth revisited," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 821-847, November.
    2. Adam Levai & Riccardo Turati, 2021. "The Impact of Immigration on Workers’ Protection," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2021021, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES), revised 07 Sep 2021.
    3. Danquah, Michael & Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph, 2017. "Assessing the relationships between human capital, innovation and technology adoption: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 24-33.
    4. Eftimoski, Dimitar, 2022. "On the inconclusive effect of human capital on growth: A new look at extended specifications," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 708-727.
    5. Teixeira, Aurora A.C. & Queirós, Anabela S.S., 2016. "Economic growth, human capital and structural change: A dynamic panel data analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1636-1648.
    6. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2016. "Democracy and growth: Evidence from a machine learning indicator," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 85-107.
    7. Morozumi, Atsuyoshi & Veiga, Francisco José, 2016. "Public spending and growth: The role of government accountability," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 148-171.
    8. E. Tsanana & X. Chapsa & C. Katrakilidis, 2016. "Is growth corrupted or bureaucratic? Panel evidence from the enlarged EU," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(33), pages 3131-3147, July.
    9. Gründler, Klaus, 2015. "The vanishing effect of finance on growth," Discussion Paper Series 133, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    10. Gründler, Klaus & Scheuermeyer, Philipp, 2015. "Income inequality, economic growth, and the effect of redistribution," W.E.P. - Würzburg Economic Papers 95, University of Würzburg, Department of Economics.
    11. Ünal Töngür & Adem Yavuz Elveren, 2017. "The nexus of economic growth, military expenditures, and income inequality," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1821-1842, July.
    12. Levai, Adam & Turati, Riccardo, 2024. "International Immigration and Labor Regulation," IZA Discussion Papers 16929, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. You, Kefei & Bianco, Silvia Dal & Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph, 2020. "Closing Technological Gaps to Alleviate Poverty: Evidence from 17 Sub-Saharan African Countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    14. Khaled Elmawazini & Elias G. Saleeby & Ahmed Ibn el Farouk & Bashayer AL-Naser, 2018. "Tripartite decomposition of labor productivity growth, FDI and human development: evidence from transition economies," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 153-171, May.
    15. Perez-Trujillo, Manuel & Lacalle-Calderon, Maricruz, 2020. "The impact of knowledge diffusion on economic growth across countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    16. Simplice A. Asongu & Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo‐Obasi, 2020. "Drivers and Persistence of Death in Conflicts: Global Evidence," World Affairs, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 183(4), pages 389-429, December.
    17. Shrabani Saha & Kunal Sen, 2019. "The corruption-growth relationship: Do political institutions matter?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-65, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Måns Söderbom & Francis Teal, 2003. "Openness and human capital as sources of productivity growth: An empirical investigation," CSAE Working Paper Series 2003-06, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    19. Priebe, Jan & Rudolf, Robert, 2015. "Does the Chinese Diaspora Speed Up Growth in Host Countries?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 249-262.
    20. Saten Kumar, 2013. "Systems GMM estimates of the health care spending and GDP relationship: a note," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(3), pages 503-506, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tertiary education; public spending; economic growth; income per capita;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O50 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uab:wprdea:wpdea1802. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dept. Economia Aplicada (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dauabes.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.