IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/edecon/v18y2010i1p67-92.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Schooling and national income: how large are the externalities?

Author

Listed:
  • Theodore Breton

Abstract

This paper uses a new data-set for cumulative national investment in formal schooling and a new instrument for schooling to estimate the national return on investment in 61 countries. These estimates are combined with data on the private rate of return on investment in schooling to estimate the external rate of return. In 1990 the external rate of return ranged from 10% in high-income countries to over 50% in the lowest-income countries. The external benefits of schooling are about equal to the private benefits in high-income countries and three times the private benefits in the lowest-income countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Theodore Breton, 2010. "Schooling and national income: how large are the externalities?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 67-92.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:edecon:v:18:y:2010:i:1:p:67-92
    DOI: 10.1080/09645290801939645
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09645290801939645
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09645290801939645?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sascha O. Becker & Ludger Woessmann, 2009. "Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 531-596.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthias Blum & Christopher L. Colvin & Laura McAtackney & Eoin McLaughlin, 2017. "Women of an uncertain age: quantifying human capital accumulation in rural Ireland in the nineteenth century," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(1), pages 187-223, February.
    2. Harashima, Taiji, 2021. "An Economic Theory of Education Externalities: Effects of Education Capital," MPRA Paper 107580, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kate Glazebrook & Ligang Song, 2013. "Is China up to the Test? A Review of Theories and Priorities for Education Investment for a Modern China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 21(4), pages 56-78, July.
    4. Breton, Theodore R., 2015. "Human capital and growth in Japan: Converging to the steady state in a 1% world," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 73-89.
    5. Breton, Theodore R., 2011. "The quality vs. the quantity of schooling: What drives economic growth?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 765-773, August.
    6. Aidan R. Vining & David L. Weimer, 2019. "The Value of High School Graduation in the United States: Per-Person Shadow Price Estimates for Use in Cost–Benefit Analysis," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-15, October.
    7. Theodore R. Breton, 2015. "Higher Test Scores or More Schooling? Another Look at the Causes of Economic Growth," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(2), pages 239-263.

    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. Sascha O. Becker & Lukas Mergele & Ludger Woessmann, 2020. "The Separation and Reunification of Germany: Rethinking a Natural Experiment Interpretation of the Enduring Effects of Communism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 143-171, Spring.
    2. Sascha O. Becker & Ludger Woessmann, 2018. "Social Cohesion, Religious Beliefs, and the Effect of Protestantism on Suicide," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(3), pages 377-391, July.
    3. Dimitrios Varvarigos, 2020. "Cultural Transmission, Education-Promoting Attitudes, and Economic Development," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 173-194, July.
    4. Oliver Falck & Michael Fritsch & Stephan Heblich & Anne Otto, 2018. "Music in the air: estimating the social return to cultural amenities," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 42(3), pages 365-391, August.
    5. Sascha O. Becker, Sascha O & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2023. "From the Death of God to the Rise of Hitler," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1478, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    6. Marianna Belloc & Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati, 2016. "Earthquakes, Religion, and Transition to Self-Government in ItalianCities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1875-1926.
    7. Schüler, Ruth Maria, 2023. "Centralized Monitoring, Resistance, and Reform Outcomes: Evidence from School Inspections in Prussia," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277652, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Jean-Paul Faguet & Camilo Matajira & Fabio Sánchez-Torres, 2022. "Constructive extraction? Encomienda, the colonial state, and development in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 20105, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    9. Fischer, Justina AV & Schneider, Friedrich, 2007. "Protestantism and Government Spending: a Negative Relationship? An Empirical Application to Swiss Cantons," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 685, Stockholm School of Economics.
    10. Carlo Ciccarelli & Torben Dall Schmidt, 2022. "The impact of history on regional development," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 42(3), pages 219-225, December.
    11. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "Jewish communities and city growth in preindustrial Europe," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 339-354.
    12. Chaudhary, Latika & Rubin, Jared, 2011. "Reading, writing, and religion: Institutions and human capital formation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 17-33, March.
    13. Nicholas Bloom & Luis Garicano & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2014. "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2859-2885, December.
    14. Quamrul H. Ashraf & Francesco Cinnirella & Oded Galor & Boris Gershman & Erik Hornung, 2017. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and the Emergence of Labor Emancipation," Working Papers 2017-1, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    15. Davide Fiaschi & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Angela Parenti, 2020. "Deep and Proximate Determinants of the World Income Distribution," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(3), pages 677-710, September.
    16. Boerner, Lars & Severgnini, Battista, 2015. "Time for growth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64495, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Sascha Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Ludger Woessmann, 2010. "The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 177-204, September.
    18. Pritha Dev & Blessing U. Mberu & Roland Pongou, 2016. "Ethnic Inequality: Theory and Evidence from Formal Education in Nigeria," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 603-660.
    19. Baele, Lieven & Farooq, Moazzam & Ongena, Steven, 2014. "Of religion and redemption: Evidence from default on Islamic loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 141-159.
    20. Nguyen Thang Dao & Julio Dávila & Angela Greulich, 2021. "The education gender gap and the demographic transition in developing countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 431-474, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    human capital; education; schooling; economic growth; external benefits;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

    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:taf:edecon:v:18:y:2010:i:1:p:67-92. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CEDE20 .

    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.