Mark Gradstein (Ben Gurion University) - Education Fever: Inequality, Fertility, and Growth, with Application to China

BOFIT seminars

BOFIT Seminar - Mark Gradstein (Ben Gurion University) - Education Fever: Inequality, Fertility, and Growth, with Application to China

Abstract

Demand for skilled labor and social status accorded by educational achievements induce a race to acquire education.  In conjunction with credit market constraints and in the context of quantity-quality tradeoff, this, in turn, may reduce fertility, especially in well educated families, and create cross section inequality while limiting intergenerational mobility.  This research suggests that these phenomena may have adverse implications for economic growth and argues that they are consistent with recent economic and social developments in China.  Consequently, in the absence of reforms that enable better access to high quality education and make it more easily affordable to poorer parts of population, China’s long run economic growth may suffer.

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