Does the Human-Capital/Educational-Sorting Debate Matter for Development Policy? / Kevin Lang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lang, Kevin.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w4052.

NBER working paper series no. w4052

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1992.

Summary:

If education increases human capital, subsidizing education can generate economic growth and combat poverty. Estimates of its return suggest that education is a good social investment. In sorting models, the return reflects in part the information about productivity revealed by the worker's education. Thus the social and private returns diverge. It might appear that if we believe the sorting model, we should be less swayed by evidence that estimated returns to education exceed the social discount rate, and therefore less likely to support education-based development policies. This conclusion is shown to be incorrect.

Notes:

Print version record

April 1992.