American Economic Review Vol. 92 No. 4 2002
Education, Social Cohesion, and Economic Growth
open access
Abstract
Our analysis of the contribution of education to growth recognizes its dual role of building human capital and promoting a common culture. It indicates that when different cultural groups separately determine the cultural orientation of their school curricula this may result in excessive polarization and sub-optimal growth. The optimal trajectory involves a gradual, reciprocal convergence of school curricula towards the middle, but may be difficult to implement in a political context in which curricula are determined by legislative bargaining. Coercive centralization then results in overly rapid homogenization and may not be superior to a decentralized school system.
- DOI
- 10.1257/00028280260344722
- Volume
- 92
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1192-1204
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref