Economics Of Human Capital: The Role Of Secondary And Tertiary Education In The Post-Crisis Economic Development Of The European Union

From the perspective of educational systems, formation and development of human capital are considered key determinants of economic growth in both literature and empirical studies. Starting from the neoclassical exogenous growth model of Solow (adjusted for human capital) and the endogenous growth model developed by Mankiw, Romer and Weil, this paper aims to assess how education affects economic development in four groups of states within the European Union. Also, the research aims to determine how government post-crisis policies in the field of education, can influence the quality of human capital and thus economic growth. By developing three models that use as independent variables various types of indicators that are related to education and based on an analysis of panel data, it follows that secondary and tertiary education affect economic growth differently. Thus, mainly there is a positive impact of tertiary education attainment rate and a negative impact of secondary school attainment rate on the growth of GDP per capita at the EU level, but the results differ when analyzing different groups of countries within the union.