Does Quality of Primary Education Affect Total-factor Productivity? Evidence from OECD Countries

Kou-Wei Chou ； Chien-Wei Chen ； Chiang-Ping Chen

《Business and Technology Innovation Journal》 3卷2期 (2023/12) Pp. 50-61

https://doi.org/10.29680/BTIJ.202312_3(2).0004

摘要

Total-factor productivity (TFP) is a critical driving force for economic growth. Education plays an important role in improving human capital which can promote TFP growth. This study tries to investigate how the quality of primary education affects TFP changes among OECD countries during the period of 2014-2020. This study first evaluates country's TFP change based on the Cobb-Douglas production function method and further discusses how the quality of primary education, such as pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) and class size, affects the TFP change by using panel data regression analysis. Also, this study collects some policy variables of the public sector such as total educational expenditure, foreign direct investment as well as trade openness into the empirical model to control the determinants of TFP change. Empirical findings are shown as follows: First, TFP growth has a critical influence on economic growth among OECD countries. Second, quality of primary education indeed has influences on the TFP change, representing that higher peer motivation attributes the TFP growth. Third, the viewpoint of peer learning can also explain why the quality of primary education affect TFP growth. Lastly, these results can be the reference for further discussion when investigating the effect of educational quality on TFP growth for other economies.

關鍵字

Educational Quality ； Pupil-Teacher Ratio ； Class Size ； Total-factor Productivity ； Primary Education ； OECD countries