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Cross-country variation in educational attainment: structural change or within-industry skill upgrading?

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Abstract

Educational attainment varies greatly across countries and within countries over time. This paper asks whether the variation in education is primarily due to industry composition or to within-industry skill intensities. The main finding is that within-industry variation accounts for at least two-thirds of the cross-country and the time-series variation in educational attainment. The within-industry education gaps are broadly consistent with a model of industry neutral cross-country differences in skilled labor productivity. These results suggest that theories of educational development should focus on skill upgrading within industries rather than structural change.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Lutz Hendricks

  2. CESifo, Munich, Germany

    Lutz Hendricks

  3. CFS, Frankfurt, Germany

    Lutz Hendricks

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  1. Lutz Hendricks
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Correspondence to Lutz Hendricks.

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Hendricks, L. Cross-country variation in educational attainment: structural change or within-industry skill upgrading?. J Econ Growth 15, 205–233 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10887-010-9055-9

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