Economic Value Of Education Research Articles

Selection and the economic value of education: A barrier to reducing the SES achievement gap?

AbstractDue to the role that schools play in determining the status of the future occupations of their children (i.e., the selection function of education), high socioeconomic status (SES) parents may not always be supportive of interventions that would reduce the SES achievement gap. In four experiments, we measured the support of parents (Ntotal = 1966) for implementing an equalizing (and, in Experiments 2 and 3, an inequality‐maintaining) intervention. In Experiments 1 and 2, a negative association between subjective SES and support for the equalizing intervention was found when the selection function was made salient, an effect that was also observed in Experiment 4 but only for Right‐leaning participants. In Experiment 3, where the salience of selection was held constant, we found a negative association between subjective SES and support for the equalizing intervention, but not the inequality‐maintaining intervention.

The English education system: undervalued and over-measured

The economic value of education is widely known. However, policymakers, despite recognising its economic benefits in theory, in practice treat education spending and school funding as a cost. In the English context, this has led to a shortfall in investment in education, training and skills. The prevailing characterisation of education as a cost obscures its genuine societal and economic value, and there is a particular need for better measurement of its social benefits, including human capital, in terms of health, civic participation, and well-being. This article explores the consequences of downplaying the investment role of education, which include cuts in real-terms education spending despite trying to pursue an economic growth agenda, and increases in educational and income inequality. The current (burdensome) accountability system then adds to the problem of underinvestment, measuring as it does only a narrow range of academic outcomes. Its high-stakes approach also appears to be undermining the desirability of teaching as a profession, which will be detrimental to education quality. This article discusses potential solutions, advocating for a comprehensive and long-term approach to education planning and measuring outcomes beyond traditional academic metrics. It urges a paradigm shift in perceiving education as a sustained, lifelong investment, necessitating strategic systemwide planning, cross-party consensus and, above all, a commitment to valuing the education system and its workforce. The article arises from a British Academy Lecture delivered in November 2022.

The economic and epistemic division of labour: on Philip Kitcher’s The Main Enterprise of the World

Abstract In The Main Enterprise of the World, Philip Kitcher identifies an over-specialized and over-loaded curriculum as a particular affliction of education in our time. Kitcher criticizes a narrow view of education on which it is conceived as being no more than job training and proposes a more humane set of educational goals to be pursued in school. For Kitcher, the problem of the narrowness of the economic aims of education and the problem of the over-loaded curriculum are connected and, in Chapter 2 of the book, he presents a thoroughgoing critique of educational specialization as a distinguishing feature of education today. He holds that the economic value of education cannot capture education's full value and that true education should build children and young people's capacities for meaningful life and work. In this paper, I discuss Kitcher's critique of educational specialization. I note that Kitcher draws most of his inspiration from considerations about what makes a human life go well and therefore situates his thinking about education in the realm of ethics, rather than in his home discipline of the philosophy of science. Defending educational specialization, I turn to some of Kitcher's earlier work in the philosophy of science to show that the epistemic division of labour calls for a considerable degree of specialization in educational curricula on epistemic, rather than on economic, grounds.

Returns to education in Russia: Nowhere below?

The paper presents a wide set of estimates for returns to education in Russia, introducing a number of new sources of microdata that previosly remained unused by both Russian and foreign researchers. Until now virtually all available estimates for Russia were based on data from a single source — The Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey — Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE). According to these data, since the mid-2000s returns to education rapidly declined and have dropped to abnormally low levels. The paper tests the thesis of ultra-low economic value of Russian education using data from three alternative representative surveys regularly conducted by Rosstat. The analysis shows that currently returns to education in Russia reach 12—13%, which is much higher than the standard RLMS estimates. University-type tertiary education almost doubles earnings (its premium approaches to 100%), and even short-cycle tertiary education provides a premium of about 20—30%. Alternative sources also indicate that over the past 15 years, returns to education in Russia remained stable and, therefore, no decreasing trend in the economic value of education has been observed. This makes it possible to reject the currently popular thesis about abnormally low returns to education in Russia.

Educational expansion and the economic value of education in Vietnam: An instrument-free analysis

Expansion of education has effects on many aspects of society. There are debates around a possible change in the economic return to education as it expands and by that education may have become a positional good. This study uses Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSS) data over the period of 2002 to 2014 with a sample of 212,521 individuals to explore how educational expansion influences the strength of the relationship between education (its absolute and relative measures) and income. The instrument-free method was employed to minimize bias. Results suggest that as higher education expands, the effect of the absolute measure of the years of schooling on labor market outcomes does not differ, but the effect of its positional measure on these outcomes does. Likewise, as higher education expands, the effect of the absolute measure of higher education graduation on labor market outcomes does not vary, but the effect of its relative measure on these outcomes does. The findings support the positional theory of education, which predicts that the absolute level of education is not critical, but rather its level relative to that of other individuals.

Loose ends? Discussing human capital and the economic value of education in the first half of the twentieth century1

Human capital has become a popular concept in modern economics since the 1960s, though its historiography is still limited. Prior studies focussed on rational reconstructions, using earlier references to provide legitimacy to modern developments. In this text we take a different approach by tracing the evolution of the term and the (dis)continuities in its use. We analyse various contexts in which education and human capital were discussed during the first half of the twentieth century. The analysis underlines the complex stabilisation of the concept human capital, the loose connections among earlier debates and between those debates and modern economics.

The Impact of Education on Income Inequality

This paper presents new evidence on the relationship between education and income inequality by drawing evidence from 145 countries between 1996 to 2016. Reviewing the economic theories of Simon Kuznets on income inequality and the arguments of Theodore Schultz on the economic value of education, this study uses the Gini index in quantifying income inequality. Findings from this study shows a positive relationship in education and inequality for high, and low-income countries and a negative relationship in middle-income countries. This study also shows that an interaction of education and per-capita growth in GDP worsens inequality while trade and education have a reducing effect on inequality.

THE IMPACT OF HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT TOWARDS LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY: EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA

The economic value of education, in terms of its contribution to social and private returns (Psacharopoulos, 1994), motivates individuals and countries to invest in the education industry. One of the social returns of human capital investment is an increase in productivity that leads to economic growth. This paper studies the contribution of human capital investment towards productivity. In particular, we quantify contribution of different levels of education to productivity growth at industry level in Malaysia during 2005 to 2012. The Arellano-Bond (1991) approach that uses the longitudinal data, produces efficient and reliable estimates in our case. We find that at aggregate level, primary, secondary, and tertiary education levels are all important in terms of its contribution to productivity. The more specific industry analysis however shows that primary education does not play a significant role in productive industries, whereas it is as important as any other level of education in low productive industries. We also study the impact of National Higher Education Strategic Plan (NHESP) 2007 policy during our sample period on productivity growth and subsequent policy change in 2009 due to change in the regime.

Yours, Mine, and the Truth: Using a Structured Minimum Wage Debate in the Economics Classroom

This article describes a strategy for using the minimum wage as a classroom debate topic. Classroom debate is an active-learning strategy that encourages students to develop skills that are often lacking in the college curriculum. Specifically, classroom debate promotes critical thinking and encourages students to see topics from various perspectives. Economics topics are well suited for classroom debate because most of the policy arguments have at least two well-reasoned positions. The minimum wage is an economics topic that students tend to care deeply about because it speaks to issues of poverty, income inequality, discrimination, and the economic value of education, and many students in the college demographic earn minimum, or near-minimum, wage. Instructors who use the minimum wage debate in their classrooms will find that students will apply an “economic way of thinking” to issues at the core of the curriculum.JEL Classifications: A21, A22, J3

The Roles of Racial Discrimination, Cultural Mistrust, and Gender in Latina/o Youth's School Attitudes and Academic Achievement.

Gender gaps in achievement are particularly pronounced among Latina/os, who are among the population most affected by the academic achievement gap. This study examined the roles of racial discrimination, cultural mistrust, and economic value of education in the academic achievement of urban, low-income Latina/o adolescents. Participants were 346 high school students. Structural equationmodeling revealed that the model of associations was a better fit for male students than for female students. Cultural mistrust mediated the relationship between racial discrimination and values of education, and perceived limitations of education predicted lower attendance rates for male students but not for female students. Implications for future research and interventions are discussed.

Education, the Economic Development Pillar

The theme approached, starts from the idea that the economic value of education is depending on the degree in which school answers to the real life requirements, from the point of view of the quality of human resource, as well as human capital product. The paper proposes a conceptual-theoretical clarification of essential concepts necessary for direct and indirect understanding, between education and socio-economic development, and how it was shaped over time the economic role of education through human capital and how this was reflected in growth theory and economic development. The results we obtain will lead to the issue of strategies, solutions and measures that will contribute to the development of society and the increase in the quality of life for the population. The proposed analysis points out that investment in human capital have a significant impact on the economic growth of every country, thus we consider human capital to be more important than any natural richness that a nation can have.

The Role of Racial Discrimination in the Economic Value of Education Among Urban, Low‐Income Latina/o Youth: Ethnic Identity and Gender as Moderators

The present study used resilience theory to explore relationships among perceived racial discrimination, ethnic identity, gender, and economic value of education (EVE) among urban, low-income, Latina/o youth. It was expected that racial discrimination would predict poorer perceptions of the EVE among Latina/o adolescents. Ethnic identity was hypothesized to buffer the negative effect of racial discrimination on Latina/o students' EVE. The participants in this study were 396 urban, low-income Latina/o high school students from a large, Midwestern city who completed surveys in both 9th- and 10th-grade. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships among racial discrimination, ethnic identity, and EVE. Results supported a protective model of resilience. Specifically, ethnic identity served as a protective factor by buffering the negative effect of perceived racial discrimination on EVE for male participants. The present study is the first to examine ethnic identity as a buffer of racial discrimination on EVE among Latina/o high school students. Future directions and implications are discussed.

INVESTICIJŲ Į AUKŠTĄJĮ IŠSILAVINIMĄ IR VALSTYBĖS PAJAMŲ BEI IŠLAIDŲ PRIKLAUSOMYBĖS TYRIMAS

History of human development confirms the close relationship between education and economic development. Successful economic development is increasingly dependent on the investment in higher education. Examining the education and professional training, the researchers focused on three key issues: the economic value of education and professional training in individual enterprises analysis; higher education and the revenue relationship structure analysis; and preparation of the optimal strategy for human resources development. Investment in higher education efficiency is dependent on external and internal factors. Internal effects - individual competencies, skills, and everything depending on the individual; external - environment for the investment process. External effects are treated as social or public benefits. The country’s investment in human resources is measured by the share of the national product used for the education and science. In order to determine the economic efficiency of the investment in higher education, it is necessary to compare the expenditures (costs) and results (benefits). The goal of the article is to evaluate the investment in higher education from the point of view of the State. The object of the article is the investment in higher education. The article uses evaluation methods of statistical processing. The method selection was determined by data accessibility. For evaluation of investment in higher education from the point of view of the State, the analysis used the short-term return rate and the brain drain methods. The estimated State investment’s in higher education short-term rate of return (ROR) has shown that RORstate (university education)> RORstate (college education) (15.55%> 3.96%). This suggests that it is more beneficial for the State to subsidize university education than college education. The greatest negative impact on the process of State investment in higher education is caused by the brain drain. This impact is evaluated taking into consideration the following indicators: the amount of State spending per student in higher education level; overall number of First Degree (BA) and college graduates; and the number of individuals with higher education degree who have emigrated. The analysis of the positive and negative effects of investments in higher education and their impact on the state, concludes that primarily responsible for the studies must be the individual (the investor), and the State has to only cooperate. To ensure the accessibility of studies, socially disadvantaged students should be funded. In order to make education accessible to everyone, student loan funding system should be functional. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.17.3.2135

Pedagogy Meets Neuroscience

Having acknowledged the social and economic value of education, modern societies are increasingly making concerted efforts to improve schooling at all age levels. Today, policy-makers and practitioners responsible for educational reform and improving classroom practice seek to base their decisions on empirical evidence rather than on opinions, fashions, and ideologies, as was too often the case in the past. This desire for “evidence-based” education has coincided with a period of tremendous progress in the field of neuroscience and enormous public interest in its findings, leading to an ongoing debate about the potential of neuroscience to inform education reform. Although the value of neuroscience research on this front is seemingly promising, collaboration with educators is doomed to failure if the public is not correctly informed and if the research is not considered in an interdisciplinary context. It has become dangerously fashionable to label general—even trivial—pedagogical advice that is not grounded in scientific fact as “brain-based learning.” For instance, findings about rapid synaptic proliferation in young children's brains have nurtured hopes that cognitive capabilities can be increased by teaching infants vocabularies and basic facts with audiovisual material. But proponents of these early education programs have conveniently overlooked the lack of direct empirical evidence linking neurological and learning processes. It is far from clear whether children who are encouraged to memorize isolated facts early in life show better long-term retention than their peers. ![Figure][1] CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES As a scientist specializing in school-related learning, I am open to the educational implications of neuroscience. However, we need to scale down unrealistic expectations. Otherwise, there is a danger that new efforts to incorporate research in this area into education could be stymied by falsely raising the hopes of the public and policy-makers. There is the further danger that people will ignore the importance of empirical research in the fields of educational and instructional science, psychology, and information technology—work that can continue to teach us about good schooling. Thanks to these more traditional areas of research, we understand a great deal about what has gone wrong in learning environments when otherwise competent students fail to learn. Research on learning and instruction has provided precise and applicable knowledge about how to design powerful learning environments in many content areas. What we now know about the conditions under which pictorial representations aid in teaching advanced concepts goes far beyond the recommendations of so-called brain-based learning. Nevertheless, certain groups of learners do not benefit sufficiently from educational environments developed in accordance with state-of-the-art research on learning and instruction, and here is where collaboration among traditional research disciplines and neuroscience may be promising. Looking into the brain during problem solving might help to clarify what impedes learning. For instance, there is an ongoing debate on whether male students outperform female students in mathematics and science because of their greater ability to use visual-spatial representations as reasoning tools. As yet, however, the implications of achievement data and behavioral observations remain ambiguous in this respect. Neuroimaging techniques have elucidated areas of the brain that are especially involved in visual-spatial processing, so we may be able to find out whether differences in achievement can be traced back to the use of visual-spatial representations in reasoning. Similarly, neuroimaging may help to clarify whether visual or phonological processing is impaired in people with dyslexia. Neuroscience may also be able to show how prior experiences can improve learning, going beyond psychological explanations. Although many studies have found evidence for the overwhelming impact of prior knowledge of skills, procedures, or concepts on learning, there may be other ways of improving learning besides such knowledge transfer. Cognitive activities can stimulate certain neuronal processes by triggering electrical impulses and the release of neurotransmitters in particular brain areas. Concurrently, other cognitive activities that are processed in similar brain areas may be enhanced, even if the two cognitive activities involve completely different knowledge structures. Neuroscience alone cannot provide the specific knowledge required to design powerful learning environments in particular school content areas. But by providing insights into the abilities and constraints of the learning brain, neuroscience can help to explain why some learning environments work while others fail. As part of interdisciplinary collaborations, neuroscience is poised to help structure the future classroom. This would be “evidence-based” reform worth supporting. [1]: pending:yes

Middle-Grade Predictors of Students’ Motivation and Behavior in High School

This study investigated students’ school context, motivation, and behavior across the transition to high school. During the final marking period of 7th and 9th grades, students completed questionnaires assessing their academic self-concept and perceptions of the motivational context created by teachers, peers, and their economic opportunity structure. Achievement and discipline data were also collected at both time points. Ninth graders provided data on their motivation (effort and valuing of education) and future academic plans. Students reported more positive motivational contexts in 9th grade versus 7th grade, particularly with respect to teachers. Seventh-grade contextual variables were associated with 9th-grade motivation and adjustment. Discriminant function analyses found that 7th-grade variables discriminated between least adjusted and better adjusted high school students. Students’7th-grade discipline referrals, doubts about the economic value of education, and negative expectations of peers and teachers were the best discriminators between less and more adjusted 9th graders.

The Economic value of education: studies in the economics of education

Part 1 Human capital theory: the empirical status of human capital theory - a slightly jaundiced survey, Mark Blaug the return to schooling in the United States, 1939-69, Martin K. marenbach perceived earnings functions and ex ante rates of return to postcompulsory education in England, Gareth Williams and Alan Gordon returns to education - an updated international comparison, George Psacharopoulos returns to education - a further international update and implications, George Psacharopoulos learninga nd earning in the post school years, Mary J. Bowman human capital and earnings - British evidence and critique, George Psacharopoulos and Richard Layard human capital and the labor market a review of current research, Jacob Mincer education, technology and the caracteristics of worker productivity, Herbert Gintis where are we now in the economics of education?, Mark Blaug academic achievement and job performance - note, Edward Lazear agency, earnings profiles productivity and hours restrictions, Edward Lazear screening and education - a theoretical and empirical survey, A.K. Whitehead occupational training in high school - when does it pay off?, John Bishop. Part 2 Efficiency of schools: the economics of schooling - production and efficiency in public schools, Eric A. Hanushek measuring efficiency in education and production, Henry M. Levin. Part 4 Education and economic development: education and economic development - the first generation, Martin Carnoy earnings, schooling, ability and cognitive skills, M. Boissiere, et al international comparisons of educational and economic indicators revisited, K.H. Lee, and George Psacharopoulos education and economic growth - another axiom of indispensability? From human capital to human capabilities, David Mitch why isn't the whole world developed?, Richard A. Easterlin the impact of primary schooling on economic development - a review of the evidence, Christopher Colclough financing public hgiher education in developing countries, Alain Mingat higher education and income distribution in a less developed country, Gary S. Fields the contribution of education to economic growth - international comparisons, G. Psacharopolos. Part 5 Political economy of schooling: the role of education in 19th century doctrines of political economy, E.G. West why is education publicly provided? - a critical survey, John R. Lott.

The Economic Value of Education, by T. W. Schultz

The Economic Value of Education, by T. W. Schultz

The Economic Value of Education.

The Economic Value of Education.

"The Economic Value of Education."

(1964). “The Economic Value of Education,”. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 356-356.

“The Economic Value of Education,”

“The Economic Value of Education,”