Economic efficiency of public secondary education expenditure: how different are developed and developing countries?

This study measures the efficiency of public secondary education expenditure in 35 developing and developed countries using a two-step semi-parametric DEA (data envelopment analysis) methodology. First, we implement two cross-country frontier models for the 2009-2012 period: one using a physical input (i.e., teacher-pupil ratio) and one using a monetary input (i.e., government expenditure per secondary student). These results are corrected by the effects of GDP per capita and adult educational attainment as non-discretionary inputs. We obtain four important results: (i) developed and developing countries have the same education production processes when they are compared using physical inputs but not when compared using monetary inputs; (ii) developing countries could increase their enrollment rates and PISA scores by approximately 9% and 5%, respectively, by maintaining the same teacher-pupil ratios and public spending levels as developed countries; (iii) Ireland, Japan and Korea are efficient countries in the two frontier models (Colombia is also included in this category when the teacher-pupil ratio is used as input); and (iv) robust empirical evidence indicates that both income and parental educational attainment positively affect the efficiency of public education in both models.

• Autores: Arias Ciro, Juliana; Torres García, Alejandro
• Fecha de publicación: 2017
• Institución: Universidad EAFIT
• Repositorio: Repositorio EAFIT
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repository.eafit.edu.co:10784/11905
• Acceso en línea: http://hdl.handle.net/10784/11905
• Palabra clave: Secondary education; government expenditure; efficiency; DEA.; Educación secundaria; gasto del gobierno; eficiencia; DEA.
• License: Acceso abierto