Where Has All the Education Gone?

Pritchett, Lant

doi:10.1596/1813-9450-1581

Cited by 385 publications

(430 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…For the periods 1975-2001and 1985-2001, the poorest quintile does have significantly negative growth of income relative to the technological frontier, which could support the idea of a poverty trap. The result for 1975-2001 and that for 1950-2001 may seem inconsistent, until we remember again that the countries in the poorest quintile in 1975 are not the same as those that were in it in 1950.…”

Section: Relative Poverty Traps?mentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Nelson 1956). The demographic transition from high to low population growth obviously played a role in the long run take-off of the West, and is stressed by a number of modern growth models (Galor and Weil 1996, 2001, Moav 2003, Galor 2002. However, how aid would facilitate the demographic transition has never been obvious (the large literature on aid effectiveness pays virtually no attention to the effect of aid on fertility), and such a role for aid is not emphasized by the current discussion of the classic aid narrative (and so this paper will not devote any attention to this mechanism).…”

Section: Intellectual Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the growth response to rapid human capital accumulation failed to materialize (Pritchett 2001(Pritchett , 2004. To take Africa again, enrollment ratios increased dramatically and the growth of human capital was higher than any other region over the last four decades, yet once again Africa failed to emerge from poverty.…”

Section: Testing the Poverty Trapmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Reliving the 1950s: the big push, poverty traps, and takeoffs in economic development

Easterly

2006

J Econ Growth

152

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The classic narrative of economic development—poor countries are caught in poverty traps, out of which they need a Big Push involving increased investment, leading to a takeoff in per capita income—has been very influential in foreign aid debates since the 1950s. This was the original justification for foreign aid. The narrative lost credibility for a while but has made a big comeback in the new millennium. Once again it is invoked as a rationale for large foreign aid programs. This paper applies very simple tests to the various elements of the narrative. Evidence to support the narrative is scarce. Poverty traps in the sense of zero growth for low-income countries are rejected by the data in the whole period 1950–2001 and for most sub-periods. The poorest quintile also does not have significant negative growth of the relative income ratio to the world’s richest country over 1950–2001, nor is relative growth for the lowest quintile significantly different than other quintiles. The claim that “well-governed poor nations” are caught in poverty traps is rejected by simple regressions that control for both initial income and quality of government (instrumenting for the latter). The idea of the takeoff also does not garner much support in the data. Takeoffs are rare in the data, most plausibly limited to the Asian success stories. Even then, the takeoffs are not associated with aid, investment, or education spending as the standard narrative would imply. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006Poverty trap, Economic development, Economic growth, Foreign aid,

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Section: Relative Poverty Traps?mentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Intellectual Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reliving the 1950s: the big push, poverty traps, and takeoffs in economic development

Easterly

2006

J Econ Growth

152

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“…Several previous empirical studies (e.g. Barro and Lee 1994;Barro 1997;Barro and Sala-I-Martin 1995;Benhabib and Spiegel 1994;Romer 1990) have found a negative correlation between education and growth (see Pritchett 2001 andKrueger andLindhal 2001 for a review). Krueger and Lindhal (2001) argue that a negative effect on the initial level of human capital might refer to an exogenous change in its rate of return.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of trade openness on regional inequality in Mexico

Rivas

2007

Ann Reg Sci

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“…One of the main criticisms of the original MRW regressions has been their empirical treatment of human capital (see for example Gemmell, 1996, Klenow & Rodriguez-Clare, 1997Pritchett, 2001). The human capital measure in MRW is based on the percentage of the working-age population that is in secondary school, obtained by multiplying the secondary enrollment rate by the fraction of the working-age population that is of school age.…”

Section: Specification and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Dualism and cross-country growth regressions

2006

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This paper develops empirical growth models suitable for dual economies, and studies the relationship between structural change and economic growth. Changes in the structure of employment will raise aggregate productivity when the marginal product of labor varies across sectors. The models in the paper incorporate this effect in a more flexible way than previous work. Estimates of the models imply sizeable marginal product differentials, and indicate that the reallocation of labor makes a significant contribution to the international variation in productivity growth. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006Structural change, Dualism, Wage differentials, TFP growth, O11, O40,

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Where Has All the Education Gone?

Cited by 385 publications

References 5 publications

Reliving the 1950s: the big push, poverty traps, and takeoffs in economic development

Reliving the 1950s: the big push, poverty traps, and takeoffs in economic development

The effects of trade openness on regional inequality in Mexico

Dualism and cross-country growth regressions

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