This study explores the relative impact of human capital formation on economic growth in Nigeria from 1981 to 2014 using time series data of thirty four (34) years. The empirical analysis begins with an investigation of the stationarity of the variables specified under the model specification. Upon which the study used the ARDL bound estimation…

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity to examine the initial policies developed by Australian, Canadian, English, German, Greek and Irish governments to limit the spread of the virus. This has revealed governments' conceptualisation of the early childhood sector and its workforce. This paper argues that neoliberal ideology and…

Over the postwar period in most developed countries, the university participation rate has risen steadily to well over 30 percent, although there remain differences between countries. Students from lower income families have lower participation rates than those from higher income families. The article provides an economic analysis of these…

In today's world characterized by increasingly effective neoliberal policies, not only the sphere of public services is being constricted but also the concept of "public service" --which traditionally has been pointing at a responsible state providing public services based on social principles and methods-- is being transformed. In…

Background: This paper was prepared to address the issue of whether current levels of public expenditures on education are cost-effective in countries with widely differing average levels of education. Purpose: The paper examines the role of education in economic growth from a theoretical and historic perspective, addresses why education has been…

Under the influence of the external policy pressure of donors such as the World Bank, higher education in Ethiopia has witnessed a series of institutional and system-wide reforms. This article reviews selected policy documents to show key neo-liberal policy agendas endorsed in the reforms and explicate how they have affected social equity in the…

A major headline in recent years has been that cash-strapped state governments are cutting back support for many services, including public higher education. Oklahoma is no different. Indeed, in the most recent state budget crafted by Oklahoma policymakers, Oklahoma's public colleges and universities received a 5.8 percent cut in state…

Two years ago John Denham launched a consultation into the future of informal adult learning. He was taken aback by the volume and quality of the responses he received. Those responses helped to generate last year's White Paper, "The Learning Revolution," which six government departments supported. Since the launch of "The Learning Revolution,"…

The present paper studies the general equilibrium implications of two types of education policy in an overlapping generations model. We examine education transfers, which augment inherited private education spending, and public investment on economy-wide human capital, which provides externalities to individual human capital accumulation. The…

This paper examines the relationship between contemporary racial inequality of schooling and the black-white wage gap in the U.S. In particular I ask: what policies would be effective at reducing the black-white wage gap in the U.S.? In order to address this question, I develop a model of human capital accumulation in which agents differ by race.…

This dissertation examines issues regarding the educational attainment of the U.S. workforce. Specifically, I investigate the impact of various factors on the growth of postsecondary educational attainment. This includes issues pertaining to improving the skill-level of the workforce at the regional or state level, as well as for the domestic…

"Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life" presents research findings on the effects of early childhood programs and practices in the first decade of life and their implications for policy development and reform. Leading scholars in the multidisciplinary field of human development and in early childhood learning…

Reviews research evidence on the benefits and costs of increasing investment in children, and a redirection of some economic policies that have an indirect impact on children. Concludes that much more could be done to enhance the well-being of children, but it would require a willingness to increase both public spending and taxation. (MOK)

The conventional economic arguments favoring greater public support of higher education in Britain are compared with the "new right" economists' arguments for redirecting resources and changing the nature of higher education. It is suggested that resource reallocation is difficult because of institutional bureaucracy, and uniform…

As Congress debates the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), it should heed Friedrich Hayek's warning that democracy is "peculiarly liable, if not guided by accepted common principles, to produce over-all results that nobody wanted." One result of the federal government's student financial aid programs is higher tuition…