Public expenditure on education: A review of selected issues and evidence.

The role of education in economic development has been recognised for quite some time in mainstream economic literature. Divergence between the private and social rate of return from education is the rationale for intervention by the state in ensuring equity in opportunity across the population. The so-called `New Growth Theories' predict that higher levels of schooling and better quality of workforce will lead to an increase in the rate of growth, further strengthening the case for public expenditure on education. The outcome of these lines of research also has implications for the financing of education. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of resource allocation by the government has generated considerable debate, both from ideological and technical points of view. It is widely acknowledged that there is a large scope for improvement in both the level, and the quality of publicly-funded education. New institutional arrangements are being designed to address the deficiencies in incentives and monitoring, thereby improving quality.Public expenditure ; Education

Public Expenditure on Education : A Review of Selected Issues and Evidence

The role of education in economic development has been recognised for quite some time in mainstream economic literature. Divergence between the private and social rate of return from education is the rationale for intervention by the state in ensuring equity in opportunity across the population. The so-called ‘New Growth Theories’ predict that higher levels of schooling and better quality of workforce will lead to an increase in the rate of growth, further strengthening the case for public expenditure on education. The outcome of these lines of research also has implications for the financing of education. However,the effectiveness and efficiency of resource allocation by the government has generated considerable debate, both from ideological and technical points of view. It is widely acknowledged that there is a large scope for improvement in both the level, and the quality of publicly-funded education. New institutional arrangements are being designed to address the deficiencies in incentives and monitoring, thereby improving quality.education, public expenditure, human capital, rate of return to education, neo-classical, economics, schooling, financing, labour market, society

Productivity growth in Indian agriculture: is there evidence of convergence across states?

This paper explores the question of convergence in total factor productivity (TFP) in agriculture across fourteen major agricultural states oflndia. Using a Tornqvist-Theil index for TFP growth for the period 1973-1993, we find no evidence to support convergence to a single TFP level (a -convergence). After grouping the various states on the basis of their productivity performance, we find that the high-performing states show a gradual movement towards the trend, whereas the low-performing states generally show more volatility. Testing for long-run convergence in levels of agricultural productivity, we find evidence of conditional beta-convergence after controlling for state-specific factors and idiosyncratic year-specific volatility. The results are robust to alternative specifications of tests of unit root in panel data developed recently. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved