Search

The objective of this paper is an efficiency analysis concerning higher education systems in European countries. Data have been extracted from OECD data-sets (Education at a Glance, several years), using a non-parametric technique - data envelopment analysis - to calculate efficiency scores. This paper represents the first attempt to conduct such an efficiency analysis at a system-level in a cross-country comparison, while focusing only on tertiary education. The role of the public sector has also been analysed, by looking at the percentage of public spending devoted to higher education, and the way the public funds are used (channelled through private subsidies or directly assigned to institutions). It has been found that there is a small core of efficient units (e.g. Switzerland, United Kingdom), and that the influence of the public sector seems to play a role in determining efficiency scores. Many elements, related to critical policies, have also been analysed adopting a semi-parametric approach, to better explain the performances and efficiency differentials. Some key-policy implications have been derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Spatial Economic Analysis is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the impact of education on growth in the EU. Public expenditure on education is used as a proxy for investment in human capital. The empirical model is based on the extended Cobb-Douglas production function with three inputs: labour, physical capital and human capital. The results imply that education spending is positively related to growth in the panel of 20 economies investigated. However, the estimated regression coefficient for the education indicator is both significant and robust to structural breaks in data or extreme observations only in the case of the advanced member states. Spending on R&D is also substantially linked to growth. In the case of post-communist countries, the relationship between education and growth is either statistically insignificant or unstable. The partial correlation analysis implies that the effect of education expenditure on growth is related to its impact on labour productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International research has shown that schooling enhances within-groups wage dispersion. This assessment is typically based on private sector data and, up to date, the inequality implications of schooling have not been documented for the public sector. This article uses recent data from eight European countries to explicitly take into account differences between the private and public sectors. Using quantile regression, the article describes the effects of schooling on the location and shape of the conditional wage distribution in each sector. While the average impact of schooling on wages is similar across sectors, the impact of schooling on within-groups dispersion is found to be substantially larger in the private sector than in the public sector. This finding warns that the effects of the European educational expansion on overall within-groups dispersion may be lower than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]