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The Economic Returns to Higher Education in the BRIC Countries and their Implications for Higher Education Expansion

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Carnoy

    (Professor of Education at Stanford University School of Education (USA))

  • Prashant Loyalka

    (Assistant Professor at Beijing University’s China Institute for Educational Finance Research (China))

  • Gregory Androushchak

    (Head of the Laboratory for Analysis and Modeling of Institutional Dynamics, the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia))

  • Anna Proudnikova

    (Research Fellow of the Laboratory for Analysis and Modeling of Institutional Dynamics, the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia))

Abstract

This paper focuses on the changing economic value of secondary and higher education in four potential world economic powerhouses—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—known as the BRIC countries. We show that in the past twenty-five years in the BRIC countries, changes in rates of return to higher education have not conformed to the diminishing returns to capital theory, which says that rates decline with level of education and that this pattern holds as countries develop economically and educationally. The rates to university completion have generally risen relative to the rates to investment in lower levels of education, and in all but India are now higher than the payoff to secondary schooling. We argue that this reflects the rapid economic change in all four countries, including their incorporation into the global economy, and, in Russia and China, the transformation from command to increasingly market economies

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Carnoy & Prashant Loyalka & Gregory Androushchak & Anna Proudnikova, 2012. "The Economic Returns to Higher Education in the BRIC Countries and their Implications for Higher Education Expansion," HSE Working papers WP BRP 02/EDU/2012, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hig:wpaper:02edu2012
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Harry Patrinos & Suhas Parandekar & Ekaterina Melianova & Artem Volgin, 2020. "Returns to Education in the Russian Federation," World Bank Publications - Reports 33976, The World Bank Group.
    3. Thomas F. Remington, 2017. "Closing the Skills-Jobs Gap: Russia and China Compared," HSE Working papers WP BRP 53/PS/2017, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    4. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Vinod Mishra, 2018. "Returns to education in China: a meta-analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(54), pages 5903-5919, November.
    5. Gustafsson, Björn & Li, Shi & Nivorozhkina, Ludmila & Wan, Haiyuan, 2015. "Yuan and Roubles: Comparing wage determination in urban China and Russia at the beginning of the new millennium," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 248-265.
    6. Somayeh Parvazian & Judith Gill & Belinda Chiera, 2017. "Higher Education, Women, and Sociocultural Change: A Closer Look at the Statistics," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(2), pages 21582440177, May.
    7. M Niaz Asadullah & Saizi Xiao, 2019. "Labor Market Returns to Education and English Language Skills in the People's Republic of China: An Update," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 36(1), pages 80-111, March.
    8. Thomas F. Remington & Israel Marques, 2014. "The Reform Of Skill Formation In Russia: Regional Responses," HSE Working papers WP BRP 19/PS/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    9. Lilas Demmou & Andreas Wörgötter, 2015. "Boosting Productivity in Russia: Skills, Education and Innovation," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1189, OECD Publishing.
    10. Thomas F. Remington, 2016. "Business-Government Cooperation in Vet: A Russian Experiment with Dual Education," HSE Working papers WP BRP 38/PS/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    11. Anna‐Maria Aksan, 2022. "Son preference and the demographic transition," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 32-56, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic returns to higher education; returns to Engineering Education; BRIC countries; Mincer equation; age-earnings profiles.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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