Early Interest, Lasting Scepticism: The Views about Education at the OECD (1960s-1980s)

• Main Author: Pedro N. Teixeira
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association Œconomia 2019-09-01
• Series: Œconomia
• Subjects: human capital; education; OECD; manpower planning; screening
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/6641

In this article we reflect about the dissemination of economic ideas among international organizations by looking at the case of the OECD and its views on education from the early sixties to the mid-eighties. Although previous studies have tended to present the OECD as an early supporter of human capital ideas, our analysis will highlight the strong and persistent resistances of this organization throughout the 1960s and 1970s to human capital theory. The analysis of major institutional events, projects, and reports of that period point out to an institutional context dominated by other views about education that reflected in its policy recommendations. This text will provide an interesting example about the dissemination of economic ideas within a certain type of political institutions and the role of economists in influencing the agenda of international organizations, which are important (yet understudied) aspects in the relation between economists and economic ideas and power in the second half of the twentieth century.