Social Benefits of Education: Feedback Effects and Environmental Resources

Richer countries are safer, healthier places to live. They pollute less and enjoy a higher standard of living. Evaluating the indirect, non-market effects of education requires detailed, microeconomic analyses of education's causal role in people's behavior. Thep purpose of this paper is to consider how education might influence the environmental quality people experience. Education could promote private behavior that enhances environmental quality for everyone, or increase people's effectiveness in protecting themselves from negative environmental effects. In order to attribute an indirect social benefit to one of these behavioral responses, we must establish that it resulted from a causal rather than a taste-related association with education.