Education as a Long‐Term Investment: The Decisive Role of Age in the Education‐Growth Relationship

Abstract

Summary Using a dataset for a panel of 118 countries, this paper shows that changes in the level of education of national populations aged 45 to 64 are positively associated with economic growth. An increase of one percentage point in the share of individuals in this age group who attended secondary education is associated with a 1.2% increase in GDP per capita. In contrast, variation in the level of education in younger cohorts is not positively associated with economic growth. These results suggest that investment in education benefits society, but only in the long‐term. Several possible explanations for this finding are discussed.

Smartphone Use and Academic Performance: Correlation or Causal Relationship?

“…It is well established in the literature that even small increases in pupil achievement can have important impacts in the long term, for instance with respect to their future earnings, but also with respect to economic growth (Jamison et al, ; Marconi, ; Mulligan, ; Murnane et al, ). In particular, based on data from the United States, Murnane et al () estimated, that an increase in high school seniors’ math test scores by one quarter of a SD results in an annual earnings increase of 3.7% at the age of 30.…”

The Moderating Effect of Social Innovation in Perspectives of Shared Value Creation in the Educational Sector of Ghana

“…However, it is also a sector that takes a more extended period to generate gross domestic product and investment returns [5,9]. Based on this logic, we contend that enterprises that focus on long-term economic benefits in this sector stand a chance to recoup their investments, consistent with the shared value thesis [10].…”

“…Education is a social product, a right of every individual, an ingredient for human development and generation of knowledge, and an avenue for human freedom and empowerment [4]. Furthermore, it is a sensitive sector that positively affects the lives of many and captures the attention of governments, since educated individuals contribute enormously to economic development [5][6][7]. On this account, it is plausible to suggest that it is an area that grants opportunities for the freedom to escape from poverty to economically disadvantaged and socially neglected individuals [8].…”

Quality of Institutions and the Allocation of Talent: Cross‐National Evidence

“…This is in contrast with using the allocation of talent as a differentiating factor explaining public returns (or lack thereof) to post-secondary education, as can be seen from Columns (1)-(3), Table 12. The allocation of talent is not the only moderating factor in the link between education and growth. According to Marconi (2018), age is another such moderator: increase of educational level in the 25-44 years old age group makes no tangible contribution to growth, whereas higher educational attainment in 45-64 years old group significantly contributes to growth. It is unclear whether the allocation of talent and age operate independently or in relation with each other as moderating factors.…”

“…Rogers, 2008;Armellini, 2012;Natkhov et al, 2018) indicate that institutions and human capital complement each other as factors of economic well-being; put differently, institutions serve as a moderator, in the sense of (Baron, Kenny, 1986), of the economic payoff to human capital. In a recent seminal contribution to the "micro-macro" debates, Marconi (2018) demonstrates that another moderating factor is agehigher educational attainments of older individuals are associated with higher growth rates. 3 To avoid ambiguity inherent in using the term "institutions" in the context of post-secondary education, we should clarify that throughout the paper this term refers to instructions -"rules of the game" (North, 1990), and not to institutions of higher learninguniversities, colleges etc.…”