Talk:Education economics

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Untitled[edit]

Thanks for your work on this, Thomas. It's a huge gap in Wikipedia.JQ (talk) 03:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Honored. On the evidence, getting the article going, and with good focus, was the hard part. So, thank you. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 10:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2019 and 8 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Judkins267.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

education production function[edit]

Should not this article discuss, at least in part, the concept of education production functions? Maybe the article Education production function, a short, orphaned article, should be merged into this one? --Bejnar (talk) 17:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn`t some be said about school closure?andycjp (talk) 08:24, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Productivity[edit]

Shouldnt something be said about the suposed relation between investement in education and productivity?Lbertolotti (talk) 21:08, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment we have this: "From lack of a more significant correlation between formal educational achievement and productivity growth, some economists see reason to believe that in today’s world many skills and capabilities come by way of learning outside of tradition education, or outside of schooling altogether." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lbertolotti (talkcontribs) 08:07, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I saw two sentences on signalling/screening, neither of which explained anything, no mention of the Sheepskin Effect. Brief mention of signalling does nothing to inform the reader of issues as to whether education merely correlates with income, or if it is causal. This is an appalling omission. The whole page equates correlation with causation. There is, in reality, very strong evidence that higher education is more of a signalling/screening mechanism than an investment in productivity. This page is highly misleading, should be considering more as propaganda than as a serious discussion.

signalling/screening[edit]

I saw two sentences on signalling/screening, neither of which explained anything, no mention of the Sheepskin Effect. Brief mention of signalling does nothing to inform the reader of issues as to whether education merely correlates with income, or if it is causal. This is an appalling omission. The whole page equates correlation with causation. There is, in reality, very strong evidence that higher education is more of a signalling/screening mechanism than an investment in productivity. This page is highly misleading, should be considering more as propaganda than as a serious discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.5.171.254 (talk) 15:45, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Gustafsson's comment on this article[edit]

Dr. Gustafsson has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


Overall, the article appears appropriately focussed, accurate and well written. I'm very happy that there now is an education economics page in Wikipedia, and that there are people who have put in the required effort (which I know is largely or totally voluntary). I have the following suggestions, roughly ordered from more to less important:

1. I think it is important to clarify that the rates of return discussed in the section 'Returns to education' do not take into account the costs, direct or indirect, of education, in fact the investments discussed in the section 'Investment costs'. If one wants to take these costs into account, one needs to use what Psacharopolous (1981) would call the 'elaborate method'. It is only by using this latter method, which is more data-intensive, that one gets to rates of return that are really comparable to rates of return in, say, an investment fund. I think clarifying this (and perhaps mentioning that what Hall and Jones calculate are called Mincerian rates) is important. It is such a fundamental point, often missed in econonomics of education primers, and one which influences the statistics in important ways. For instance, returns to post-school education emerge as relatively better, and more intuitively right, when one uses the elaborate method, in other words when one calculates true rates of return. Psacharopolous and Patrinos (2004: 116) in fact use the term 'wage effects' for Mincerian returns to clarify that these are not true rates of return.

2. What is not captured in the page is the important shift, during the last decade or so, away from years of education as an important predictor of GDP growth towards the quality of education. In this regard, I think a key missing reference is Hanushek and Woessman (2009), which is one of a few cross-country analyses using test results which to a large degree have changed the way economists and policymakers think about progress in schooling systems, and the relationship between educational progress and economic growth. Here's suggested text which could be inserted at the end of the section 'Effects on productivity': "The greater availability, since around 2000, of comparable test score data, from developed and particularly developing countries has allowed economists to test the extent to which years of schooling, as opposed to what children actually learn, impact on economic growth. Economists such as Hanushek and Woessman (2009) have confirmed that it is indeed what students learn, not their year's of schooling, which most accurately reflect education's role in economic growth. These findings have influenced governments and global organisations, such as the World Bank, bringing about a stronger policy emphasis on educational quality."

3. Another recent shift which I think should be reflected on the page is the increasing use of impact evaluation methods amongst economists, which is linked to strong criticism directed at the use of production function analysis to understand what school inputs matter. Perhaps something like the following could appear at the end of the section 'Education production function' (or one could insert a new section there titled 'Impact evaluation techniques'): "In response to criticism that production functions do not provide a sufficiently reliable basis for assessing what education inputs matter, there has been a shift towards greater use of impact evaluation techniques amongst education economists. The gold standard for such techniques is the randomized control trial, which borrows from the medical field, and involves the use of treatment and control groups of students to assess the effectiveness of, for instance, certain educational materials. Other techniques more focussed on using data which were not originally intended for impact evaluation purposes also exist." A nice reference to use here would be Schlotter, Schwerdt and Woessman (2010). There are of course many texts, but this one stands out for me as being particularly easy to read, and thus good as an introductory text.

4. Perhaps remove 'in European countries' from 'Typically in European countries most education expenditure...'. There is nothing especially European about the phenomenon being described. It can be found in most countries. More generally, I don't have a terribly serious problem with the statistics being quoted being mainly European ones, insofar as those statistics are somewhat indicative of patterns around the world. But it would enhance the article if global statistics were quoted, perhaps with one or two references to differences found between developed and developing countries.

5. The matter of equity deserves some presence on the page, I think. Something like the following could be added to the end of the section 'Financing and provision': "Although the existence of returns to all levels of education suggests households should be able to obtain loans to finance education, such loans, especially at the basic education level, are not practical. Public financing of education is thus seen as an important way of reducing inequities in society."

6. Just as I thought the word 'equity' deserved at least one or two occurrences on the page, I think 'efficiency', as a word and a concept, could be more more present. One suggestion would be to insert the following after your sentence ending "...most frequently, standardized test scores": "Where production functions attempt to explain the impact of school inputs on outputs such as test scores, the concern is often the internal efficiency of schools, or the extent to which schools maximise the outputs they are primarily expected to produce. The external efficiency of an education system, on the other hand, refers to the ability of the system to produce the human capital needed in the labour market and society as a whole."

7. The explanation of screening could be clearer. A suggested new ending to the section titled 'Liberal approaches' is the following: "The central idea is that education qualifications are used as a signal of relative ability, meaning that what becomes important for individuals is to exceed the qualifications of others. The model thus helps to explain a rise in the average years of education where there are limited income improvements."

8. Perhaps include a reference where you say "There also seems to be a correlation between gender differences in education with the level of growth...". I suspect many readers would be interested in a reference, partly because they would like to know exactly how this complex dynamic works.

9. Under 'Investment costs' I find "Thus the two are of similar magnitude" strange. The one value is twice the other.

10. In the section 'Liberal approaches', I find the two sentences beginning "Studies from 1958 attempted..." a bit odd. What is special about 1958? Moreover, the two sentences essentially repeat what has been said earlier. If one removed these two sentences I don't think one loses anything.

11. In order to capture something economists of education are often asked to do by governments, you could perhaps include the following somewhere (perhaps under 'Production functions'): "A key question education economists are often asked to address is whether publicly employed teachers are paid too much or too little, and whether wage increments associated with age are appropriate. The methods for this, drawn partly from labour economics, often focus on comparing teacher pay to the pay of other comparable professionals within the same labour market, whilst taking into account matters typically peculiar to the teaching profession, such as school holidays and the fact that in many countries most teachers, especially at the primary level, are women." A reference here could be Hernani-Limarino (2005).

12. Under 'Liberal approaches' it seems best to me to say "Formal education" instead of "Educational advance" in "Educational advance is not the only variable for economic growth...".

13. The following are just language issues:

  • in "...for first four years of schooling..." there's a missing "the";
  • "tradition education" should be "traditional education";
  • the bit "...their concepts and methods are theorized and criticized by the influence of Marx as education being used in reproduction of capitalist societies" is difficult to follow, and should perhaps be "...Marxist theorists and critics have been concerned with the role of education in reproducing a capitalist society";
  • in "socialist mode of social organizations", "mode" should be plural.

REFERENCES

Hanushek, E.A. & Woessman, L. (2009). Do better schools lead to more growth? Cognitive skills, economic outcomes, and causation. Washington: National Bureau of Economic Research. Available from: <http://www.nber.org/papers/w14633.pdf?new_window=1> [Accessed March 2009]. Hernani-Limarino, W. (2005). Are teachers well paid in Latin America and the Caribbean? In Emiliana Vegas (ed.), Incentives to improve teaching: Lessons from Latin America. Washington: World Bank: 63-99. Psacharopoulos, G. (1981). Returns to education: An updated international comparison. Comparative education, 17(3): 321-341. Psacharopoulos, G. & Patrinos, H.A. (2004). Returns to investment in education: A further update. Education Economics, 12(2): 111-134. Schlotter, M., Schwerdt, G. & Woessman, L. (2010). Econometric methods for causal evaluation of education policies and practices: A non-technical guide. Bonn: IZA. Available from: <http://ftp.iza.org/dp4725.pdf> [Accessed April 2013].

All the best

Martin Gustafsson (PhD) [mgustafsson@sun.ac.za] Department of Economics University of Stellenbosch South Africa

(I should add that I'm based in Pretoria at the Ministry of Education, so my interest is very much on the applied side of economics of education, which perhaps comes through in my comments.)


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  • Reference : Martin Gustafsson & Alejandro Morduchowicz, 2008. "What we can learn from a comparison of the schooling systems of South Africa and Argentina," Working Papers 17/2008, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeas (talk) 06:25, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Gallipoli's comment on this article[edit]

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There are some clear omissions in this article.

First, education, especially higher post-secondary education, can have both an investment value (think of an engineering degree that will lead to a well paid job) as well as a consumption value (think of arts' degree that allows one to appreciate the finer things in life). A classic reference for this distinction is the paper by Edward Lazear. "Education: Consumption or Production?." The Journal of Political Economy (1977): 569-597. Other related contributions are Willis, Robert J., and Sherwin Rosen. "Education and self-selection." (1978) and Hanushek, Eric A. "The economic value of education and cognitive skills." Handbook of education policy research (2009): 39-56. A recent article that quantifies the consumption value of education is Alstadsæter, Annette. "Measuring the consumption value of higher education." CESifo Economic Studies 57.3 (2011): 458-479.

Second, the important aspect of heterogeneity in education investments is barely mentioned. Not all investments in education carry the same return, and there is a fair amount of evidence showing that this depends on specific features of individuals. For a review see Heckman, James J., and Stefano Mosso. The economics of human development and social mobility. No. w19925. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2014. Important contributions in this area are Cunha, Flavio, James Heckman, and Salvador Navarro. "Separating uncertainty from heterogeneity in life cycle earnings." Oxford Economic Papers 57.2 (2005): 191-261 and Abbott, Brant, et al. Education policy and intergenerational transfers in equilibrium. No. w18782. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013.

Finally, there is barely any discussion of the supply-side of the education market. Private and public institutions provide services geared to providing education to individuals and enhancing their human capital. While this part of the literature is just at its early stages, it should be at least be mentioned in the article.


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  • Reference : Brant Abbott & Giovanni Gallipoli & Costas Meghir & Giovanni L. Violante, 2013. "Education Policy and Intergenerational Transfers in Equilibrium," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1887, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 16:59, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Hanushek's comment on this article[edit]

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This article is clear and generally an accurate assessment of specific issues. It is, nonetheless, quite a narrow view of the current state of the field. The article focuses a lot on school attainment -- historically reasonable but missing the majority of current work. Most current work considers quality of education, and extensive research investigates how various factors affect student achievement and long run outcomes.


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  • Reference 1: Hanushek, Eric A. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2010. "How Much Do Educational Outcomes Matter in OECD Countries?," IZA Discussion Papers 5401, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  • Reference 2: Hanushek, Eric A. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2010. "Sample Selectivity and the Validity of International Student Achievement Tests in Economic Research," IZA Discussion Papers 4926, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 14:43, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Ross's comment on this article[edit]

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This entry is very out of date. The references basically end with Rivkin, Hanushek and Kain 2005, which was the beginning of the revolution in education research based on longitudinal student data, as well as a dramatic expansion in the scope and extent of quasi-experimental and randomized field studies used to evaluate the effectiveness of education programs. RHK was one of the key papers that ushered in a now massive literature using longitudinal student data. I barely even know where to start about bringing this entry up to date.

Note the major finding of RHK is not even mentioned in the discussion that places Hanushek in the camp where resources do not matter. Specifically, RHK show that teachers are incredibly important in the production of educational gains, but that with the exception of whether the teacher has at least a few years of experience virtually all other attributes that we collect on teachers do not capture the aspects of teachers that really contribute to student performance.

First, on the issue of whether resources matter, there are two recent very convincing papers that resources do matter.

C. Kirabo Jackson, Rucker C. Johnson, Claudia Persico. In Press. The Effects of School Spending on Educational and Economic Outcomes: Evidence from School Finance Reforms. Quarterly Journal of Economics

Joshua Hyman. 2015. "Does Money Matter in the Long Run? Effects of School Spending on Educational Attainment," working paper under revision for the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

There are also important recent papers on the effects of school inputs on long-run outcomes, which is relavent to the section on effects on productivity. Two important examples are

Raj Chetty, John Friedman and Jonah Rockoff. 2014. Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," American Economic Review, September 2014, 104(9): 2533-2679.

Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Nathaniel Hilger, Emmanuel Saez, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Danny Yagan. 2011. How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star. Quarterly Journal of Economics 126 (4): 1593-1660.

There are also huge literatures on questions that are not even covered in this survey, but are central to the broad literature on Economics of Education: The effect of school accountability programs, the Specific Effect of No Child Left Behind, the effect of school choice, teacher labor markets and unions, or peer effects.

If you want, I can contribute more details in some of these areas. Namely, the effect of school choice on segregation and on peer effects in education, but this will have to wait for me to submit another comment.


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  • Reference : Robert Bifulco & Jason M. Fletcher & Sun Jung Oh & Stephen L. Ross, 2012. "Do Classmate Effects Fade Out?," Working papers 2012-43, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 13:08, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Pritchett's comment on this article[edit]

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Returns on investment[edit]

Human capital in the form of education shares many characteristics with physical capital. Both require an investment to create and, once created, both have economic value. Physical capital earns a return because people are willing to pay to use a piece of physical capital in work as it allows them to produce more output. To measure the productive value of physical capital, we can simply measure how much of a return it commands in the market. In the case of human capital calculating returns is more complicated – after all, we cannot separate education from the person to see how much it rents for. To get around this problem the returns to human capital are generally inferred from differences in wages among people with different levels of education. Hall and Jones have calculated from international data that on average that the returns on education are 13.4% per year for first four years of schooling (grades 1–4), 10.1% per year for the next four years (grades 5–8) and 6.8% for each year beyond eight years.[5] Thus someone with 12 years of schooling can be expected to earn, on average, 1.1344 × 1.1014 × 1.0684 = 3.161 times as much as someone with no schooling at all.

Citing Hall and Jones for this point is strange, at best as it was not their original research that came up with these numbers. I would cite the underlying Mincer return literature that regresses individual earnings on individual schools to derive these coefficients. There are many reviews by Psacharoplus (sp?) and then Psach... and Patrinos and most recently Montenegro and Patrinos reported on literally hundreds of estimates.

Positive externalities from human capital are one explanation for why governments are involved in education. If people were left on their own, they would not take into account the full social benefit of education – in other words the rise in the output and wages of others – so the amount they would choose to obtain would be lower than the social optimum.[1]

This use of "normative" (e.g. a welfare maximizing central planner would take into account externalities) as a "positive" explanation of actual events in the world should always be avoided--and particularly in the case of education where nothing about what governments do in the field of education corresponds to a normative optimum.

Finally, the matter of externalities should be considered. Usually when speaking of externalities one thinks of the negative effects of economic activities that are not included in market prices, such as pollution. These are negative externalities. However, there are also positive externalities – that is, positive effects of which someone can benefit without having to pay for it. Education bears with it major positive externalities: giving one person more education raises not only his or her output but also the output of those around him or her. Educated workers can bring new technologies, methods and information to the consideration of others. They can teach things to others and act as an example. The positive externalities of education include the effects of personal networks and the roles educated workers play in them.[6]

It is actually very very hard to find evidence for externalities in macroeconomic outcomes. I have two papers "Where has all the education gone" and "Does learning to add up add up" which show that many of the common estimates suggest that the cross-national data does not support estimates of general positive externalities to schooling. They might exist in some economies but their generic existence has not been shown.

Statistics have shown that countries with high enrollment/graduation rates have grown faster than countries without.

This is just not true, at least not without massive care and caveats.

a) obviously the fasting growing countries in the world (East Asia) had, at the time of their most rapid growth much lower enrollment/graduation rates than did the US or Europe.

b) the increment to the stock of human capital should theoretically be the driver of economic growth and this was negatively correlated with enrollment rates during much of the recent period as it is the change in the enrollment rate that drives massive increases in the stock of human capital so in general countries with lower enrollment rates (e.g. Korea) than the US has faster growth of their stock as their enrollment rates were increasing. (see "where has all the education gone" for a simple explanation and the findings).

Marxist critique[edit] Although Marx and Engels did not write widely about the social functions of education, their concepts and methods are theorized and criticized by the influence of Marx as education being used in reproduction of capitalist societies. Marx and Engels approached scholarship as "revolutionary scholarship" where education should serve as a propaganda for the struggle of the working class.[11] The classical Marxian paradigm sees education as serving the interest of capital and is seeking alternative modes of education that would prepare students and citizens for more progressive socialist mode of social organizations. Marx and Engels understood education and free time as essential to developing free individuals and creating many-sided human beings, thus for them education should become a more essential part of the life of people unlike capitalist society which is organized mainly around work and the production of commodities.[11]

It is amusing how this is just stuck in there. I don't see how an article on the "economics of education" should have o have a sociological debate about the purposes of education, as much as it amuses Marxists I suppose. (and if one is going to talk Marx and education is one going to talk the reality of education in Marxist states? seems like a topic for another day)

In most countries school education is predominantly financed and provided by governments. Public funding and provision also plays a major role in higher education. Although there is wide agreement on the principle that education, at least at school level, should be financed mainly by governments, there is considerable debate over the desirable extent of public provision of education. Supporters of public education argue that universal public provision promotes equality of opportunity and social cohesion. Opponents of public provision advocate alternatives such as vouchers.[12][13][14]

My understanding is that one uses "public production" versus "public provision" as vouchers are, to my mind, public provision of education with or without public production. The state can "provide" or "provide for" highways by privately constructed toll roads (and so on and so on).


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  • Reference : Lant Pritchett, 2004. "Towards a New Consensus for Addressing the Global Challenge of the Lack of Education," Working Papers 43, Center for Global Development.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 13:09, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Chiappori's comment on this article[edit]

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Incredibly incomplete. Jim Heckman, a Nobel laureate, has spent the last two decades producing first class and enormously influential work on education and human capital. That he is not even mentioned is flabbergasting.


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  • Reference : Chiappori, Pierre-Andre & Oreffice, Sonia & Quintana-Domeque, Climent, 2010. "Matching with a Handicap: The Case of Smoking in the Marriage Market," IZA Discussion Papers 5392, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 13:31, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Lopes's comment on this article[edit]

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As it happens with most Wikipedia articles, there is an excessive emphasis on the USA situation.

Also the orthodox theories and approaches constitute the almost unique theoretical framework, no alternative approaches being referred. Just think about one or two practical situations:

- what will be the impacts on productivity and income arising from an investment in "human capital" which practical output is high skilled unemployment and brain drain ? See, for example, Andrew S. Griffith 2014 (http://search.proquest.com/openview/dfe83bfea91deed84cb0fd164b7d5da8/1?pq-origsite=gscholar) and 2015.

- what about the non economic outputs from the "investment in human capital" - v.g. health improvements, social justice, less violence .... See for instance Stephen Ball (2013, 2nd.) The Education Debate (https://books.google.pt/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pjrxsIF7Q4MC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&ots=dUvfFRU7Y7&sig=xDndMV0GCGHaRlmD09VCl7sjezM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false)

??


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  • Reference : Margarida Chagas Lopes, 2013. "Is Public Education Viable? A brief critical review of neoliberalism in education with a special focus on the Portuguese situation," Working Papers wp022013, Socius, Socio-Economics Research Centre at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG) of the Technical University of Lisbon.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 09:15, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Blanchard's comment on this article[edit]

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I would cite Jones (2014) [1] at the end of this sentence: "The higher productivity of well-educated workers is one of the factors that explain higher GDPs and, therefore, higher incomes in developed countries."

The first time Hall and Jones (1999) is mentioned, it should be linked to the reference.

The Marxist critique section seems only very loosely related to the overall article and might be cut.

This sentence: "Educational advance is not the only variable for economic growth, though, as it only explains about 14% of the average annual increase in labor productivity over the period 1915-2005." Needs to be cited as only one of many interpretations of the data (with reference). Other studies -- including Jones (2014), above -- would suggest a very different conclusion.

Overall, this article reads like the views of a particular author or set of authors. There should be more reference to other work, including Goldin and Katz (e.g. http://www.nber.org/papers/w12984), or the many studies in development economics (like Shastry (2012) http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/47/2/287.full.pdf+html) and many others. Work on the determinants and drivers of higher education (e.g. work by Bound and Turner


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  • Reference : Emily Blanchard & William W. Olney, 2013. "Globalization and Human Capital Investment: How Export Composition Drives Educational Attainment," Department of Economics Working Papers 2013-18, Department of Economics, Williams College, revised Mar 2015.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 15:27, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Checchi's comment on this article[edit]

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Recent works by Hanushek and Woessmann include the quality of the education (as proxied by international tests on student competences) as complementary proxy for human capital, especilly in growth analysis. There are repetions (when discussing the relationship between growth and average aducational attainment in the population).


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  • Reference : Braga, Michela & Checchi, Daniele & Meschi, Elena, 2011. "Institutional Reforms and Educational Attainment in Europe: A Long Run Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 6190, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 17:13, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Ono's comment on this article[edit]

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I think this article is in good shape.


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  • Reference 1: Tetsuo Ono, 2012. "Inequality Dynamics and the Politics of Redistribution," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 12-09-Rev, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics and Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), revised Nov 2013.
  • Reference 2: Ono, Hiroshi, 2000. "College Quality and Earnings in the Japanese Labor Market," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 395, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 06 Sep 2000.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:01, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Patrinos's comment on this article[edit]

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The section on the returns should include actual returns to schooling. There are calculations of such for more than 100 countries. Some recent references include:

Montenegro, C. E., Patrinos, H. A. Comparable Estimates of Returns to Schooling around the World, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, 7020, 2014. Patrinos, H.A., 2016. "Estimating the return to schooling using the Mincer equation," IZA World of Labor, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), pages 278, July. Psacharopoulos, G. "Returns to investment in education: A global update" World Development 22:9 (1994): 1325−1343. Online at: DOI: 10.1016/0305-750X(94)90007-8 Psacharopoulos, G., Patrinos, H. A. "Returns to investment in education: A further update" Education Economics 12:2 (2004): 111−134. Online at: DOI: 10.1080/0964529042000239140

The references in general are quite dated.


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  • Reference 1: Arcia, Gustavo & MacDonald, Kevin & Patrinos, Harry Anthony, 2014. "School autonomy and accountability in Thailand: a systems approach for assessing policy intent and implementation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7012, The World Bank.
  • Reference 2: Patrinos, Harry Anthony & Velez, Eduardo & Wang, Catherine Yan, 2013. "Framework for the reform of education systems and planning for quality," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6701, The World Bank.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:13, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Rocco's comment on this article[edit]

Dr. Rocco has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


Hall and Jones have calculated from international data that on average that the returns on education are 13.4% per year for first four years of schooling (grades 1–4), 10.1% per year for the next four years (grades 5–8) and 6.8% for each year beyond eight years.[5] Thus someone with 12 years of schooling can be expected to earn, on average, 1.1344 × 1.1014 × 1.0684 = 3.161 times as much as someone with no schooling at all. The problem of estimating accurate returns to education is one of the most difficult and debated in the field. I would tone down these results drawn from a relatively old, though seminal, paper. See the more recent Pischke, J. and von Wachter, T. (2008) "Zero Returns to Compulsory Schooling in Germany: Evidence and Interpretation", The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 90, No. 3, Pages 592-598, for very different results.


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

We believe Dr. Rocco has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:


  • Reference 1: Marco Bertoni & Giorgio Brunello & Lorenzo Rocco, 2013. "When the Cat is Near, the Mice Won't Play: The Effect of External Examiners in Italian Schools," CEP Discussion Papers dp1191, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  • Reference 2: Brunello, Giorgio & Crivellaro, Elena & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2010. "Lost in Transition? The Returns to Education Acquired under Communism 15 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall," IZA Discussion Papers 5409, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 16:49, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Human Resource Economics Fall 2021[edit]

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