Education, growth, and income inequality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Teulings, Coen; van Rens, Thijs
• 署名单位: CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy; University of Amsterdam; Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI); Pompeu Fabra University
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest.90.1.89
• 发表日期: 2008-02
• 页码: 89-104
• 关键词: international comparisons; technical change; relative wages; panel-data; workers; MODEL; set

摘要

Estimates of the effect of education on GDP (the social return) have been hard to reconcile with micro evidence on the private return to schooling. We present a simple explanation combining two ideas: imperfect substitution and endogenous skill-biased technological progress and use cross-country panel data on inequality and GDP to test these ideas. A one-year increase in the level of education reduces the private return by 2 percentage points, consistent with Katz-Murphy's (1992) elasticity of substitution. We find no evidence for reversal of this initial effect as in Acemoglu (2002). In the short run, the social return equals the private return.