Éducation et croissance en France et dans un panel de 21 pays de l’OCDE

France is characterized by a long duration of schooling and high levels of education spending. Spending per pupil or student has risen over the past thirty years, driven notably by the growing weight of secondary and higher education. What, then, is the broader impact of education on French growth in the medium term? Neoclassical growth theories emphasize the role of human capital accumulation in the growth of developed nations. We estimate a medium-term production function using panel data for 21 OECD countries covering the period from 1971 to 1988. We employ an "error-correction" model to capture country-specific short-term dynamics and identify a significant positive medium-term effect of the working-age population's average years of schooling on per capita productivity. The apparent "social" return on an additional year of education is estimated at 7% for the average OECD country and 10–11% for France. Naturally, this effect must be interpreted with caution. On one hand, it is valid only within the range of current schooling levels. On the other, it does not imply that all types of education spending have a significant potential impact on growth. In this regard, France stands out among OECD countries by spending relatively large amounts on secondary school pupils and relatively little on higher education students. Incorporating a "degree" effect into the analysis of French data supports the view that investment in long-cycle higher education has a greater impact on medium-term productivity in France than investment in short, vocationally oriented programs.