Output growth in the post‐compulsory education sector: the European experience

This paper analyses the problem of measuring the output of the education sector. It uses a combination of the index number approach with the education return methods. This allows us to take into account not only the number of students but also the labour outcomes corresponding to each type of education. As a result we obtain comprehensive measures of output based on enrollment, completion rates, expected wages, employability and labour market participation issues. We apply this approach to estimate the rates of growth of the output of the post-compulsory education sectors of 27 European countries over the period 2005‐2009. The results show the importance of complementing raw educational data with labour outcome information when measuring output in this sector.