IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/edecon/v24y2016i1p3-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economic case for education

Author

Listed:
  • Ludger Woessmann

Abstract

The case for education can be made from many perspectives. This paper makes the case for education based on economic outcomes. Surveying the most recent empirical evidence, it shows the crucial role of education for individual and societal prosperity. Education is a leading determinant of economic growth, employment, and earnings in modern knowledge-based economies. Ignoring the economic dimension of education would endanger the prosperity of future generations, with widespread repercussions for poverty, social exclusion, and sustainability of social security systems. Policy-makers interested in advancing future prosperity should particularly focus on educational outcomes, rather than inputs or attainment.

Suggested Citation

  • Ludger Woessmann, 2016. "The economic case for education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 3-32, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:edecon:v:24:y:2016:i:1:p:3-32
    DOI: 10.1080/09645292.2015.1059801
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09645292.2015.1059801
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09645292.2015.1059801?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. Colm Harmon & Ian Walker & Niels Westergaard-Nielsen, 2001. "Introduction [to Education and earnings in Europe : a cross country analysis of the returns to education]," Open Access publications 10197/757, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    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. Pierre LESUISSE, 2024. "Education, public expenditure and economic growth under the prism of performance," Working Papers of BETA 2024-10, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    2. Sasso, Simone & Ritzen, Jo, 2016. "Sectoral Cognitive Skills, R&D, and Productivity: A Cross-Country Cross-Sector Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 10457, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Pompei, Fabrizio & Selezneva, Ekaterina, 2021. "Unemployment and education mismatch in the EU before and after the financial crisis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 448-473.
    4. Driouchi, Ahmed & Harkat, Tahar, 2016. "Macroeconomic and School Variables to Reveal Country Choices of General and Vocational Education: A Cross-Country Analysis with focus on Arab Economies," MPRA Paper 73455, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bonin, Holger, 2017. "The Potential Economic Benefits of Education of Migrants in the EU," IZA Research Reports 75, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Albinowski, Maciej & Magda, Iga & Rozszczypała, Agata, 2023. "The Employment Effects of the Disability Education Gap in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 15932, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Yaroslav Kuzminov & Pavel Sorokin & Isak Froumin, 2019. "Generic and Specific Skills as Components of Human Capital: New Challenges for Education Theory and Practice," Foresight and STI Governance (Foresight-Russia till No. 3/2015), National Research University Higher School of Economics, vol. 13(2), pages 19-41.
    8. Tolga Yuret, 2024. "Career paths of the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) medalists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(6), pages 3469-3491, June.
    9. Ludger Wößmann, 2020. "Folgekosten ausbleibenden Lernens: Was wir über die Corona-bedingten Schulschließungen aus der Forschung lernen können," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 73(06), pages 38-44, June.
    10. Jeromey B. Temple, 2018. "The Association between Stressful Events and Food Insecurity: Cross-Sectional Evidence from Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-15, October.
    11. Stephen Hall & Janine Illian & Innocent Makuta & Kyle McNabb & Stuart Murray & Bernadette AM O’Hare & Andre Python & Syed Haider Ali Zaidi & Naor Bar-Zeev, 2021. "Government Revenue and Child and Maternal Mortality," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 213-229, February.
    12. Pierre Lesuisse, 2022. "Education, public expenditure and economic growth under the prism of performance," Working Papers hal-03685311, HAL.

    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. Angel de la Fuente & Juan Francisco Jimeno, 2004. "The private and fiscal returns to schooling and the effect of public policies on private incentives to invest in education: a general framework and some results for the EU," Working Papers 152, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. Ammermueller, Andreas & Kuckulenz, Anja & Zwick, Thomas, 2009. "Aggregate unemployment decreases individual returns to education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 217-226, April.
    3. Yasser Razak Hussain & Pranab Mukhopadhyay, 2023. "How Much do Education, Experience, and Social Networks Impact Earnings in India? A Panel Data Analysis Disaggregated by Class, Gender, Caste and Religion," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    4. Angel de la Fuente, 2003. "Human Capital in a global and knowledge-based economy, part II: assessment at the EU country level," Working Papers 98, Barcelona School of Economics.
    5. Doyle, Orla & Harmon, Colm P. & Walker, Ian, 2005. "The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Health of their Children," IZA Discussion Papers 1832, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Wölfel, Oliver & Heineck, Guido, 2012. "Parental risk attitudes and children's secondary school track choice," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 727-743.
    7. Christiansen, Charlotte & Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 2002. "The Educational Asset Market: A Finance Perspective on Human Capital Investment," Working Papers 02-10, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    8. Petter Lundborg & Erik Plug & Astrid Würtz Rasmussen, 2017. "Can Women Have Children and a Career? IV Evidence from IVF Treatments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1611-1637, June.
    9. Concetta Mendolicchio & Thomas Rhein, 2014. "The gender gap of returns on education across West European countries," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(3), pages 219-249, May.
    10. Skalli, Ali, 2007. "Are successive investments in education equally worthwhile? Endogenous schooling decisions and non-linearities in the earnings-schooling relationship," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 215-231, April.
    11. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    12. Dustin T. G. RODRIGUEZ, 2016. "Returns to Education of Colombian Economists: Analysis from the Theory of Human Capital (2009-2013)," Journal of Economic and Social Thought, KSP Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 139-149, March.
    13. Ludger Wößmann, 2003. "European education production functions: what makes a difference for student achievement in Europe?," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 190, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    14. Tampieri, A., 2022. "The effects of educational assortative matching on job and marital satisfaction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    15. Nigel C. O’Leary & Peter J. Sloane, 2005. "The Return to a University Education in Great Britain," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 193(1), pages 75-89, July.
    16. repec:zbw:rwirep:0065 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. John H Goldthorpe, 2014. "The role of education in intergenerational social mobility: Problems from empirical research in sociology and some theoretical pointers from economics," Rationality and Society, , vol. 26(3), pages 265-289, August.
    18. Sokolovska Alla & Rainova Larysa & Zatonatska Tetiana, 2019. "Loan and Grant Support for Students in the Context of the Diversification of Funding Sources for Higher Education," Ekonomika (Economics), Sciendo, vol. 98(1), pages 111-123, June.
    19. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1754 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Thomas Melonio & Xavier Timbeau, 2006. "Les 140 points de PIB oubliés de la comptabilité nationale française," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2006-01, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    21. Longhi, Simonetta & Brynin, Malcolm, 2006. "The wage effects of graduate competition," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-58, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    22. Arrazola, María & de Hevia, José, 2008. "Three measures of returns to education: An illustration for the case of Spain," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 266-275, June.

    More about this item

    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:24:y:2016:i:1:p:3-32. 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.