Public education and growth: cost-effectiveness of educational policies in developing countries

The paper analyses the short and long term effects of education activities for an open economy, linking current costs to future benefits of alternative educational policies. The simulations find that growth effects are higher for those policies that reduce the internal inefficiency of the education sector thus improving the productivity of public expenditure. The analysis has implications for policymakers in developing countries like Uruguay with failing educational systems, as it suggests a relation between cost effectiveness of policies and growth and not a relation between enrolments and growth or between public expenditure in education and growth as it is usually tested in growth regressions.