Title: The effect of education on economic growth in Greece over the 1981-2009 period. Does the proxy of human capital affect the estimation?

Authors: Constantinos Tsamadias; Panagiotis Pegkas

Addresses: Department of Home Economics and Ecology, Harokopio University, El. Venizelou 70, Kallithea, 17671, Athens, Greece. ' Department of Home Economics and Ecology, Harokopio University, El. Venizelou 70, Kallithea, 17671, Athens, Greece

Abstract: This study examines the effect of education on economic growth in Greece, during the period 1981 to 2009, by applying the model introduced by Mankiw et al. (1992). Three different proxies of human capital were used, school enrolment rates in secondary education, average years of schooling and the proportion of the labour force which has received secondary education. The empirical analysis reveals that education has had a negative effect on economic growth. Specifically, the coefficients for the three proxies that were used have resulted in negative sign but only for the enrolments rates case was statistically significant. The model explained 26% up to 34% of the variation of the economic growth rate through the variation of the independent variables in different cases.

Keywords: economic growth; secondary education; economic development; human capital proxy; Greece; higher education; primary education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2012.049176

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2012 Vol.3 No.3, pp.237 - 251

Received: 01 Dec 2011
Accepted: 21 May 2012

Published online: 23 Aug 2014 *

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