Title: Education and economic growth in a developing country

Authors: Kalé Akwei; Misheck Mutize; Abdul Latif Alhassan

Addresses: International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group, Washington ' African Peer Review Mechanism, African Union, Johannesburg, South Africa ' Development Finance Centre (DEFIC), Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract: Quality education is one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for its 2030 vision to 'transform the world'. It is assumed that, investment in inclusive and equitable quality education opens economic opportunities for all and has a long-term positive impact on economic growth. This paper thus examines the impact of education on economic growth in Togo, a developing country, using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) error correction model (ECM) estimation method on time series data from 1971 to 2018. Results of the short-run estimations show a significant positive relationship between education and GDP per capita. However, long-run estimations results show a negative relationship between education and GDP per capita growth. Thus, the study recommends governments to increase investment in education in the short term.

Keywords: SDGs 2030; education; economic growth; GDP per capita; United Nations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2022.121833

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2022 Vol.13 No.2, pp.171 - 189

Received: 04 Oct 2020
Accepted: 23 Jan 2021
Published online: 07 Apr 2022 *

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