Social Benefits of Education: Feedback Effects and Environmental Resources

Abstract

This paper considers the ways that education might influence the environmental quality that people experience. Education could accomplish these effects by promoting private behavior that enhances environmental quality for everyone, or by increasing people's effectiveness in protecting themselves from environmental externalities. An important reason for addressing these questions is to consider complementarities between different public sector activities that create public or mixed public-private goods. After reviewing the conceptual issues associated with modeling these types of relationships, the paper reviews the available empirical literature to determine if there is support for this type of linkage and reports some new findings of a link between risk information programs and education. The paper closes with a discussion of the policy implications of these types of relationships.