Education and Economic Growth.

Patrinos, Harry Anthony

Promoting quality education for economic growth has become a priority in more nations than ever before. The belief in the power of education is strong in policy circles. But the question remains, does education contribute to economic growth, and how?

The work of Hanushek et al. ("Education and Economic Growth," research, Spring 2008) demonstrates that what people know, and not just how many years of schooling they complete, is the key to understanding how schooling investments improve productivity. Information from standardized tests and especially international assessments of student learning provide an excellent measure of skills. Putting together these scores over time and by country is extremely useful. Showing the link between learning and economic growth is even more valuable.

Hanushek et al. have shown that improvements in learning will boost economic growth by an amount sufficient to cover the cost of the reform.This is good news for policymakers. The challenges now are to demonstrate what investments will improve learning, and to extend the measurement of human capital to low-income countries, where the returns to improved learning would be even greater.

HARRY ANTHONY PATRINOS

Lead Education Economist

World Bank