Arnold Kling

Growth and Education

Arnold Kling, Great Questions of Economics
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Brad DeLong describes an interesting article on growth, but his link to it does not work. DeLong writes,

We look sequentially at the three broad factors that have driven modern American economic growth: human capital, the formal knowledge and the skills acquired through practice and experience of our labor force; physical capital, the machines, buildings, and infrastructure that amplify worker productivity and embody much of our collective technological knowledge; and the ideas that make up our modern industrial technology and that are in the end the crucial factor making our society so rich in historical and comparative perspective. Of these, ideas-technology-must take first place when ultimate causes are discussed. But it is human capital-education and skills-that must take first place when we think about policy.

Discussion Question. One of the ideas that has contributed to economic growth has been the idea of market competition. How might this idea be applied to education?

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