DOES FORMAL EDUCATION AT ALL LEVELS CAUSE ECONOMIC GROWTH? EVIDENCE FROM GREECE

• Main Authors: Panagiotis PEGKAS, Constantinos TSAMADIAS
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2015-06-01
• Series: Review of Economic and Business Studies
• Subjects: formal education levels; human capital; enrolment rates; economic growth; VAR; Greece
• Online Access: http://www.rebs.ro/articles/pdfs/188.pdf

This study empirically investigates the link between the levels of formal education and economic growth in Greece during the period 1960-2009. The paper applies the Lucas approach (1988) and employs cointegration, error-correction models and estimates the effect of each educational level on economic growth. The empirical analysis reveals that there is a long-run relation between educational levels and gross domestic product. The overall results show that secondary and higher education has had a statistically significant positive impact on growth, while primary has not contributed to economic growth. The findings also suggest that there is evidence of unidirectional long-run causality running from primary education to growth, bidirectional long-run causality between secondary and growth, long-run and short-run causality running from higher education to economic growth.