College education offers a hefty 8.8% pay premium for each marginal increase in the number of years of intellectual attainment.

Fiona Sydney

2018-04-29 13:44:00 Sun ET

College education offers a hefty 8.8% pay premium for each marginal increase in the number of years of intellectual attainment in contrast to the 5.6%-6% long-run average U.S. equity premium.

World Bank economists George Psacharopoulos and Harry Patrinos investigate 1,120 studies across 139 countries to derive an average annual rate of return on each marginal increase in the basic level of educational attainment. This 8.8% pay premium far exceeds the U.S. stock market return about 5.6%-6% per annum over the past 5 decades. The pay premium excludes social gains such as positive social interactions and low mortality rates in close association with better education. Also, the pay premium is higher for girls and college graduates (in direct comparison to postgraduates). This premium is higher in low-income countries primarily as these countries recruit a smaller share of international citizens with higher education.

In accordance with the law of lower marginal value, this pay premium dwindles for each extra year of educational attainment. Psacharopoulos and Patrinos posit a current race between education and technology. This race suggests that high-tech advances accelerate to favor high-skill workers to the detriment of low-skill workers. The normative implication for public policy is that the government should subsidize college education or even graduate school attendance. This subsidization serves as a worthy socioeconomic investment in human capital.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller's long-term stock market indicator points to a recent peak.

Apple Boston

2018-09-17 12:40:00 Monday ET

Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller's long-term stock market indicator points to a recent peak.

Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller's long-term stock market indicator points to a recent peak. His cyclically-adjusted P/E ratio (or CAPE) accounts for long-

+See More

The Trump administration teams up with western allies to bar HuaWei and other Chinese tech firms.

Daisy Harvey

2019-02-02 11:36:00 Saturday ET

The Trump administration teams up with western allies to bar HuaWei and other Chinese tech firms.

The Trump administration teams up with western allies to bar HuaWei and other Chinese tech firms from building the 5G high-speed infrastructure due to natio

+See More

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of Amazon (U.S. stock symbol: $AMZN).

Dan Rochefort

2025-09-14 14:23:00 Sunday ET

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of Amazon (U.S. stock symbol: $AMZN).

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fund

+See More

China turns on its 5G telecom networks in the hot pursuit of global tech supremacy.

Becky Berkman

2019-12-07 11:30:00 Saturday ET

China turns on its 5G telecom networks in the hot pursuit of global tech supremacy.

China turns on its 5G telecom networks in the hot pursuit of global tech supremacy. China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile disclose 5G fees of $18-$2

+See More

Oxford macro professor Stephen Nickell and his co-authors delve into the trade-off between inflation and unemployment in the dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment.

Apple Boston

2023-08-07 12:29:00 Monday ET

Oxford macro professor Stephen Nickell and his co-authors delve into the trade-off between inflation and unemployment in the dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment.

Oxford macro professor Stephen Nickell and his co-authors delve into the trade-off between inflation and unemployment in the dual mandate of price stability

+See More

Corporate diversification theory and evidence

James Campbell

2022-04-05 17:39:00 Tuesday ET

Corporate diversification theory and evidence

Corporate diversification theory and evidence A recent strand of corporate diversification literature spans at least three generations. The first generat

+See More