Pedro Silva Martins and Pedro Telhado Pereira
 
 

The PuRE project results were presented in at the New University of Lisbon, on October 27th, 2000.

Niels Westergaard-Nielsen delivered the first presentation, which addressed the main results of the project. These involved the estimation of the returns to education across Europe, in such a way that comparable results would be obtained. Returns to education are an important piece of evidence as they depict the percentage increase in earnings associated to a further year of schooling attainment.

The results suggest a large amount of dispersion in the returns, ranging from between 4% or 5% for the Nordic countries and 10% or 11% for Portugal, United Kingdom and Ireland. With respect to time trends, no clear pattern could be obtained. This suggests that the large increase in educational attainment in Europe was approximately matched by the increase the the demand for skilled workers by firms.

Simona Comi presented empirical results on the changes in wages throughout an individual’s work life. These results suggest that these wage-experience profiles were steeper for more educated individuals.

The following issue addressed in the seminar was the link between schooling and inequality. Pedro Silva Martins presented evidence that suggests that, in an overwhelming majority of PuRE countries, the spread of wages increases across individuals with higher schooling levels. Issues such as over-education, ability-schooling interactions or differences in schooling quality may have driven these results.

Joop Odink presented further results on this topic. He outlined inequality measures which place Portugal, United Kingdom and Ireland at the top of the table whereas Sweden presents the lowest figure.

The following topic was unemployment. José Luis Roig addressed the role of unemployment rates upon the computation of returns to education. Given that unemployment rates decrease with the schooling level of the individuals, he noticed that the usually derived rates underestimate the true return to schooling.

Erling Barth presented some evidence on the increased demand for tertiary-level educated workers. He estimates that the annual growth rate of the demand for these workers ranged 5% across Europe.

The last PuRE presentations addressed the research results on the public funding of education. Rudolf Winter-Ebmer started by outlining some explanations for the adequacy of the government’s involvement in the education sector: education’s public good nature, the credit market’s constraints in terms of financing private education invesments, and the positive externalities brought by schooling in terms of the productive process.

In his empirical results, he found that a 1% increase of publid funding increases higher education enrolment in approximately 1%. He further showed that the returns to education do not apparently have a noticeable effect in explaining differences in enrolment rates.

Marianne Guille addressed the topic of public credit to education across the PuRe countries. She found that national systems differ a great deal along a number of important dimensions.

Finally, Ian Walker presented some results on schooling and poor children in the UK. He found that the schooling of the parents of these children plays a large role in explaining school success rates of these children, whereas government support has no positive effects. These results suggest that schooling may have an up until now unacknowledged positive externality: intergenerational effects.

The second part of the seminar included the participation of Richard Layard (London School of Economics and House of Lords, UK) and the contribution of the following panel members: Hilary Steedman (London School of Economics), Roberto Carneiro (Universidade Católica Portuguesa) and Simo Juva (Finland’s Education Ministry).

Richard Layard, in his key-note address, offered a large set of insightful comments on the previous presentations. Besides other points, he argued in defense of compulsory and free schooling until the age of 18. Hilary Steedman stressed the issue of social exclusion and the need of individuals receiving a set of basic skills before they leave the education system.

Roberto Carneiro stressed the political economy aspect of public funding of education. Drawing on his own experience, he referred the constrains involved in the implementation of reforms in the education system.

The relationship between scientific research and political decisions was addressed by Simo Juva. He underlined the role of clear scientific results, such as some of those produced by PuRE, in further strengthening the above-mentioned relationship.

The meeting concluded then with a debate amongst the large number of participants.
 
 
 

Media Coverage: "Diário Económico" newspaper published an article covering the seminar’s presentations.