Like I mentioned earlier, I have very little interest in economic growth. Education is a necessary but not sufficient condition, I said as much when I wrote ” Education drives Health, and in case of market economies it drives wealth also.” implying that other policies have an effect on wealth. Cuba is a good example, it is almost on par with USA in terms of life expectancy, babies per woman, but not money. This is because of their education levels.
Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova are ex USSR countries, the transition from communism had been catastrophic in 1990′s. Even so their human development indicators are decent with life expectancy at 70+ years. Micronesia is behind at 65 years life expectancy.
Babies per women are around 3 for micronesia and Kyrgyz Republic, with moldova less than 2. Those countries are doing ok, even as I wish things were better for all of them.
I already listed the best papers I have read above in addition you can read Amartya Sen’s books.
Hunger and Public Action published in 1991 is still worth reading, his comparison of India, China, Kerala is illuminating.
But my point was that your blanket statement about there being no countries which implemented widespread K-12 education and didn’t have huge welfare gains (whether as wealth or e.g. HDI) is wrong on its face. e.g. South Africa and Switzerland since 1990 increased mean years of schooling by 50% (from 8y to 12y); South Africa saw its HDI increase by 0.04 but Switzerland saw it increase by 0.11 over the same period. OTOH, there are countries with very little increase in time spent in school which have seen huge increases in HDI.
oh good. now we are thinking about individual countries their histories and lessons that they can offer. Amartya Sen/Jean Dreze introduced me to this way of thinking in their book Hunger and Public Action, their latest “An Uncertain Glory: India and its contradictions” is good too.
Glad you brought up HDI which consists of three parts Education, Life Expectancy and Income.
In South Africa Education as you noted is up, Income is basically flat, Life Expectancy on the other hand in back to 1993 levels after crashing hard due to he AIDS crisis. South Africa given the history of apartheid should be analyzed as two populations 1) White 2) Blacks + others. Unfortunately I don’t have the disaggregated data for those groups.
OTOH, there are countries with very little increase in time spent in school which have seen huge increases in HDI.
Care to share the list? Oil (or resource) wealth is one way HDI increases without any real change in people’s lives. I discount that kind of HDI improvements.
But my point was that your blanket statement about there being no countries which implemented widespread K-12 education and didn’t have huge welfare gains
I wrote that to be slightly provocative, can we find one country that is an exception it’s possible (I have been looking and haven’t found one). The fundamental point being that when we look at countries and their history we find that education levels explain life expectancy. This can be seen from China (pre-reform 1979), Taiwan, South Korea, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Kerala, Mauritius, Cuba etc..
Easterlin Paradox can be explained by Education levels
Like I mentioned earlier, I have very little interest in economic growth. Education is a necessary but not sufficient condition, I said as much when I wrote ” Education drives Health, and in case of market economies it drives wealth also.” implying that other policies have an effect on wealth. Cuba is a good example, it is almost on par with USA in terms of life expectancy, babies per woman, but not money. This is because of their education levels.
Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova are ex USSR countries, the transition from communism had been catastrophic in 1990′s. Even so their human development indicators are decent with life expectancy at 70+ years. Micronesia is behind at 65 years life expectancy.
Babies per women are around 3 for micronesia and Kyrgyz Republic, with moldova less than 2. Those countries are doing ok, even as I wish things were better for all of them.
I already listed the best papers I have read above in addition you can read Amartya Sen’s books.
Hunger and Public Action published in 1991 is still worth reading, his comparison of India, China, Kerala is illuminating.
https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198283652.001.0001/acprof-9780198283652-chapter-11
Wolfgang Lutz and his coauthors papers are good too
https://scholar.google.at/citations?user=QRH1wRYAAAAJ&hl=en
Will have a look at those links.
But my point was that your blanket statement about there being no countries which implemented widespread K-12 education and didn’t have huge welfare gains (whether as wealth or e.g. HDI) is wrong on its face. e.g. South Africa and Switzerland since 1990 increased mean years of schooling by 50% (from 8y to 12y); South Africa saw its HDI increase by 0.04 but Switzerland saw it increase by 0.11 over the same period. OTOH, there are countries with very little increase in time spent in school which have seen huge increases in HDI.
oh good. now we are thinking about individual countries their histories and lessons that they can offer. Amartya Sen/Jean Dreze introduced me to this way of thinking in their book Hunger and Public Action, their latest “An Uncertain Glory: India and its contradictions” is good too.
Glad you brought up HDI which consists of three parts Education, Life Expectancy and Income.
In South Africa Education as you noted is up, Income is basically flat, Life Expectancy on the other hand in back to 1993 levels after crashing hard due to he AIDS crisis. South Africa given the history of apartheid should be analyzed as two populations 1) White 2) Blacks + others. Unfortunately I don’t have the disaggregated data for those groups.
Care to share the list? Oil (or resource) wealth is one way HDI increases without any real change in people’s lives. I discount that kind of HDI improvements.
Relevant latest data on HDI
http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdro_statistical_data_table7_15.pdf
I wrote that to be slightly provocative, can we find one country that is an exception it’s possible (I have been looking and haven’t found one). The fundamental point being that when we look at countries and their history we find that education levels explain life expectancy. This can be seen from China (pre-reform 1979), Taiwan, South Korea, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Kerala, Mauritius, Cuba etc..
Easterlin Paradox can be explained by Education levels
Education and Happiness: a Further Explanation to the Easterlin Paradox?