Making the Grade: The Contribution of Education Expenditure to Economic Growth

Does education expenditure promote long-run economic growth? Empirical evidence is inconclusive. This paper addresses the question of how education expenditure influences economic growth using a long run growth accounting model analyzing 179 countries from 1970 to 2014. Overall, the results indicate that education expenditure does positively affect growth. However, when the sample is split into different criteria based on economic prosperity of the countries in question, the results change. In non-oil countries education expenditure increases economic growth, in developing countries education expenditure has a negative impact and in OECD countries the impact is non-significant