ABSTRACT
It is commonplace to assign education an important role in economic growth. Mankiw (2001, p. 253) asserts that in general, ‘Education-investment in human capital-is at least as important as investment in physical capital for a country’s long-run economic success.’ Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1999, chapter 12) in their exhaustive empirical analysis of cross-country differences in growth rates, report significant effects of schooling on economic growth, and they note that the proportion of population with secondary and higher education is the most significant correlate of growth rates, cet. par. Hanushek and Kimko (2000) note that in a broad cross section of countries, direct measures of labor-force quality as measured by scientific and mathematics test scores have a large and significant relationship to economic growth rates. Bils and Klenow (2000), while more reserved in their attribution of a causal relationship, recognize a modest impact of schooling on growth rates in an international cross section. Kreuger and Lindahl (2001, p. 1130), in their meta-analysis of literature on effect of schooling on growth, find that evidence supports a positive effect of initial level of education on growth among low-productivity countries. In both neoclassical and endogenous growth paradigms, education-particularly higher education-has an important role in determining productivity and its growth. Indeed, we are here today to honor someone who, in both word (e.g. Chow, 2002, chapter 21) and deed has demonstrated his wholehearted belief in the power of education to promote social well-being and who has applied his knowledge and belief in China’s behalf.
