Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/162571 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Discussion Papers No. 2017-30
Publisher: 
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel
Abstract: 
Although European economic history provides essentially no support for the view that education of the general population has a positive causal effect on economic growth, a recent paper by Becker, Hornung and Woessmann (Education and catch-up in the Industrial Revolution, 2011) claims that such education had a significant impact on Prussian industrialisation. The author shows that the instrumental variable they use to identify the causal effect of education is correlated with variables that influenced industrialisation but were omitted from their regression models. Once this specification error is corrected, the evidence shows that education of the general population had, if anything, a negative causal impact on industrialisation in Prussia.
Subjects: 
education
industrialization
Prussia
regional effects
invalid instrument
JEL: 
I25
N13
N63
O14
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
195.48 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.