Educational Expansion, Educational Inequality and Economic Growth

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This research is divided into two parts. In Part 1, we investigate the empirical relationship between educational inequality, income inequality and economic growth using the cross-section data of Japanese prefectures 1970-1994. Income inequality is captured by Gini coefficients based on household expenditure data. As an index of educational inequality or dispersion, we apply the representative inequality measures, i.e. Gini coefficients, Bourguignon's "L" and Theil index, to the schooling years of labor force in each prefecture. We examine whether the changes of income inequality are associate with them. It finds that the change in income inequality have negative association with the educational inequality and per capita income growth, and have positive association with the level of education. These findings are robust to the inclusion of several control variables.In Part2, using the Chinese cross-section data which covers all 31 regions, the empirical relationship between educational expansion, educational inequality and economic growth was investigated. Educational expansion, measured by an increase of the average schooling years of labor force in each region, has a positive effect on economic growth. On the other hand, educational inequality, measured by the standard deviation, coefficient of variation and Gini coefficient of schooling years, respectively, are all decreasing with the educational expansion, and they have negative effect on economic growth. This relationship between the level of education and the inequality of education can be interpreted as the existence of so-called Education Kuznets curve. Also, the estimating results of the simultaneous equation model on the relationship between educational expansion, educational inequality and per capita income growth are reported.