Economic efficiency of public secondary education expenditure: how different are developed and developing countries?

Juliana Arias Ciro () and Alejandro Torres Garci?a ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Alejandro Torres-García

No 15919, Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público from Universidad EAFIT

Abstract: This study measures the efficiency of public secondary education expenditure in 35 developing and developed countries using a two-step semi-parametric DEA (data envelopment analysis) methodology. First, we implement two cross-country frontier models for the 2009-2012 period: one using a physical input (i.e., teacher-pupil ratio) and one using a monetary input (i.e., government expenditure per secondary student). These results are corrected by the effects of GDP per capita and adult educational attainment as non-discretionary inputs. We obtain four important results: (i) developed and developing countries have the same education production processes when they are compared using physical inputs but not when compared using monetary inputs; (ii) developing countries could increase their enrollment rates and PISA scores by approximately 9% and 5%, respectively, by maintaining the same teacher-pupil ratios and public spending levels as developed countries; (iii) Ireland, Japan and Korea are efficient countries in the two frontier models (Colombia is also included in this category when the teacher-pupil ratio is used as input); and (iv) robust empirical evidence indicates that both income and parental educational attainment positively affect the efficiency of public education in both models.

Keywords: Secondary education; government expenditure; efficiency; DEA. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H52 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34
Date: 2017-12-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-eff
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http://hdl.handle.net/10784/11905

Related works:
Journal Article: Economic efficiency of public secondary education expenditure: How different are developed and developing countries? (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000122:015919

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