What Drives Social Returns to Education? A Meta-Analysis

Ying Cui () and Pedro Martins
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Ying Cui: Queen Mary, University of London

No 14332, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Education can generate important externalities that contribute towards economic growth and convergence. In this paper, we study such externalities and their drivers by conducting the first meta-analysis of the social returns to education literature. We analyse over 1,000 estimates from 32 journal articles published since 1993, covering 15 countries of different levels of development. Our results indicate that: 1) there is publication bias (but not citation bias) in the literature; 2) spillovers slow down with economic development; 3) tertiary schooling and schooling dispersion increase spillovers; and 4) spillovers are smaller under fixed-effects and IV estimators but larger when measured at the firm level.

Keywords: education externalities; returns to education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C36 I26 I28 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: World Development, 2021,148, 105651

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Related works:
Journal Article: What drives social returns to education? A meta-analysis (2021)
Working Paper: What drives social returns to education? A meta-analysis (2020)
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