Education and Income Growth: Implications for Cross-Country Inequality.

This paper examines the extent to which patterns of human capital convergence can account for observed patterns of income inequality between countries. The author decomposes national income into three components: one due to education levels, one reflecting the return to education, and a residual component. He then examines the contribution of each to changes in income dispersion. Among the developed countries, convergence in education levels has resulted in a reduction in income dispersion. However, for the world as a whole, incomes have diverged despite substantial convergence in education levels. Copyright 1995 by University of Chicago Press.