The paper examines the role of education in economic growth from both a theoretical and historic perspective, addresses why education has been the limiting factor determining growth historically, provides estimates of the quantitative importance of the direct and indirect effects of education on...

The economics literature identifies three effects of schooling on national income; the direct effect on the earnings of the workers who receive the schooling and the external effects on workers' earnings and on physical capital due to schooling's spillover effect on the productivity of these...

The marginal product of human capital in Mankiw, Romer, and Weil's [1992] augmented Solow model measures the direct and two external effects of human capital created from schooling on national income. If this model is valid, its estimates of the share of this marginal product accruing to workers...

I estimate a Solow model augmented with human capital in 42 countries for 1910-2000. Estimated TFP growth is 0.3%/year, and the steady-state rate for GDP/capita is 1.0% year. Implicitly for high-income countries maintaining growth above this rate will be increasingly difficult

Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson [2001] present evidence that colonies with inclusive and extractive institutions have grown at different rates since colonial times. I examine whether their findings are consistent with the estimated effects of schooling and experience on earnings over workers’...

We investigate why the economics literature often finds a negative relationship between increased schooling and GDP growth over short periods. We show that increases in GDP in 98 countries during five-year intervals are correlated with the increases in adults' average schooling during the prior...