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Does education affect economic outcomes, and if so, how? Does education finance interact with public policy? And how does education finance policy contribute to the development of a new strategic planning for the next generation, if at all? This chapter reviews recent conceptual and methodological developments in the field of economics and finance of education. The review covers these two major topics and is divided into three sections. First is an overview of the field, including current trends in economics of education in both developed and developing countries. This section incorporates themes such as returns to investment in education, costs of education, education and economic growth, and education market, choice, and incentives. The second section focuses on finance of education and current debates on equality, equity, and efficiency in educational finances. The third section presents summary and discussion. The discussion will bring to light the issues, challenges, opportunities, and future directions of the field. Where appropriate, examples and empirical evidence from both developing and developed countries are presented.

This paper draws attention to an extremely commonplace fact: we are educated because we are considered educable. One lesson leads to another: if you stay on in school tomorrow you have almost infinitely more chance of staying on next year as well. Moreover, owing to the internal, intermediate selection procedures of the educational process, and probably also to the constancy throughout adolescence of the genetical and environmental influence, few children change their IQ. It is very hard to believe, but it is the case, that these simple facts remain unstated in nearly all the economic literature on education and human capital.

Recent developments in the economics of higher education are surveyed and a number of avenues which future research could usefully follow are identified. Particular attention is given to the demand for and supply of higher education, the role of higher education institutions as multi‐product firms, the optimal pattern of provision, and the academic labour market.

This paper takes stock of developments in, and the state of, the field of comparative and international education at the beginning of the 21st century, using as data base articles published in the journal Comparative Education Review during the second decade of the 21st century and to compare results with a content analysis done on the first 50 years of the existence of the Review and which was published in 2008. The 246 articles that were published in the Comparative Education Review during the decade 2010–2019 were analyzed under the following metrics: levels of analysis of articles; number of units covered by articles; research methods; narrative basis; phase of education articles cover; and mode of education articles deal with. Compared to the first 50 years of the existence of the Review, single-unit national-level studies still dominate the field, though less so. A case can be made out for a deconcentration to allow more space for research at geographic levels both larger and smaller than the nation-state. The most prominent narrative in which articles are framed is that of the social justice narrative. The neo-liberal economic narrative stands strong too, while the poor standing of the human rights narrative is disappointing. Turning to modes and phases of education is concerned, the shadow education system has registered on the comparative and international education research agenda, while there seems to be a modest upswing in interest in pre-primary education. Thoughts about the future trajectory of the field are suggested.

The reports seem contradictory. With about three billion dollars per year in new loan commitments, the World Bank has become the single largest source of development capital in the field of international education. These resources help expand educational opportunities for young women in South Asia and rebuild primary schools following civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. They support textbooks, school meals, new curriculum, and teacher training in thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of locations in over 100 countries in six regions.

Entrepreneurship education and training are an increasingly widespread component of governmental and nongovernmental efforts to address the interrelated challenges of youth unemployment and poverty reduction. In the absence of consensus regarding how best to design learning opportunities that effectively prepare youth to improve their livelihoods, this chapter explores the central debates surrounding three components that are integrated into most entrepreneurship training initiatives: learning, earning, and saving. Drawing on existing literature and considering three entrepreneurship training programs underway in East Africa, the authors argue that the effectiveness of any particular youth entrepreneurship program is highly dependent on a variety of contextual considerations, many of which are beyond the control of individual youth and program managers. Implications of this are that (a) program managers need to be modest in their expectations of program effects and avoid overpromising, (b) training is needed to help prepare youth to recognize, understand, and cope with various contextual factors that impact their livelihoods, and (c) NGOs and other private organizations that implement such programs are in a position to address certain contextual factors. By highlighting key debates relevant to the design of entrepreneurship training programs, this chapter contributes to the development of entrepreneurship training initiatives that are responsive to contextual realities, thereby increasing the potential effectiveness of entrepreneurship training as a poverty alleviation strategy.

Attempts to present a commentary on a few recent attempts at constructing a composite index of human development, and in the process briefly traces the trends in thinking that show marked shifts from economic growth to social development and to further human development. Shows that national income still remains an important indicator of overall development, and further, that various methodologies of compositing several indicators of development into one index produced broadly similar rank ordering of the nations.

The major objective of this study is to examine the efficacy of the technical and vocational training courses imparted to generate employment or enhance the productivity of participants.

The study was conducted in the province of Sindh, Pakistan by adopting a quasi-experimental approach. The experiment was conducted on 105 individuals—with the age group of 20–25—distributed between the treatment group and the control group. The data collected through the experiment were analyzed by applying a paired-sample t-test, independent sample t-test and one-way between-group analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The findings of this study show statistically significant higher monthly earnings of Rs14, 223 after the training intervention program. Findings also exhibit a significant difference in monthly earnings between the control and the treatment groups.

The findings of the study can provide useful input to policymakers while devising the policies regarding technical education and vocational training (TVET) and to the international donors in assessing the impact of the training initiatives.

This study presents experimental-driven evidence on the role of technical education and vocational training in improving the labor market outcomes.

This paper uses a unique survey of Roma and non‐Roma in South Eastern Europe with the aim of evaluating competing explanations for the poor performance of Roma in the labour market.

Following a descriptive analysis, econometric models are employed to identify the determinants of educational achievement, employment and wages for Roma and non‐Roma. Limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) methods are employed to control for endogenous schooling and two sources of sample selection bias in the estimates. Non‐linear and linear decomposition techniques are applied in order to identify the extent of discrimination.

The key results are that: the employment returns to education are lower for Roma than for non‐Roma whilst the wage returns are broadly similar for the two groups; the similar wage gains translate into a smaller absolute wage gain for Roma than for non‐Roma given their lower average wages; the marginal absolute gains from education for Roma are only a little over one‐third of the marginal absolute gains to education for majority populations; and, there is evidence to support the idea that a substantial part of the differential in labour market outcomes is due to discrimination.

The survey data employed do not include information on hours worked. In order to partially control for this, the analysis of wages is limited to employee wages excluding the self‐employed.

Explanations of why Roma fare so badly tend to fall into one of two camps: the “low education” and the “discrimination” schools. The analysis suggests that both of these explanations have some basis in fact. Moreover, a direct implication of the lower absolute returns to education accruing to Roma is that their lower educational participation is, at least in part, due to rational economic calculus. Consequently, policy needs to address both low educational participation and labour market discrimination contemporaneously.

This is the first paper to attempt to econometrically distinguish between discrimination and educational explanations of Roma disadvantage in the labour market in Central and Eastern Europe. The survey data employed are unique and appropriate for the task. Unusually for analyses dealing with returns to education, the LIML econometric approach employed controls for both endogenous schooling and two sources of sample selection bias.

This paper examines whether educational attainment correlates with risk aversion among rural households in Uganda.

Unique large-scale field experimental data on risk aversion is used and complemented with household survey data. In the analysis, the study uses the ordinary least square method.

The study finds a positive, albeit not robust, correlation between educational attainment and risk aversion. The results suggest that in some contexts, education may reduce risk-taking behaviour. The study also finds that compared to other age groups, the correlation between years of schooling and risk aversion is positive and statistically significant in the subsample of those aged 60 and above. This suggests that the effects of education on risk aversion may differ across age groups.

This is the first study in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) linking educational attainment and risk aversion. Empirical studies that use experimentally elicited risk aversion parameters to examine the influence of educational attainment on risk aversion are nonexistent in SSA. Understanding whether education influences risk aversion in SSA is of policy relevance because individuals, on average, are said to be more risk averse. Risk aversion may aggravate poverty in the region by inducing sub-optimal risk-averse behaviours.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2023-0989