Higher education teaching and training system and economic performance: an empirical investigation

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the impact of higher education characteristics on economic performance. Despite a relatively plethoric literature, there is still a clear lack of understanding of the interaction of teaching and training with knowledge, innovation and economic performance; the heterogeneity across levels of economic development; and the mediating role of innovation and knowledge. The existing literature on higher education policy, economics and innovation helps us identify four key higher education characteristics relating to size, funding, subsidies and mismatching. Cross-country education, patents and publications data are used to estimate the direct and indirect effects of the four higher education characteristics on economic performance. We draw a number of conclusions, including the desirability of subsidies and greater access to higher education, and the non-desirability of the ‘Ivory Tower’ system. We also find a significant difference in the interaction of higher education characteristics with economic performance across levels of economic development.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education and training system
• economic performance
• patent
• publication
• cross-country
• developing and developed countries

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For example, the full data sample is dominated by OECD countries (21 out of 30 countries), while there are only five OECD countries in the missing data sample.

2. These are Curacao, Gibraltar, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, San Marino, Somalia, South Sudan, Taiwan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, and The Vatican.

3. Although we do not have direct literature on economic performance, we use research carried out on the impact on knowledge and innovation. Since these two are positively correlated with economic performance, we use them as proxies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Radhia Bouchakour

Radhia Bouchakour is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Nature and Life Sciences, University of Blida I, Algeria. Her research area is in sustainable development, off-farm work, and university-agriculture relationship in developing economies.

Mohammed Saad

Mohammed Saad is a professor of Innovation and Technology Management at Bristol Business School, University of the West of England. His research activity spans several fields – mainstream operations management, innovation and technology management and more global policy related issues of knowledge development, transfer and institutional collaborative learning.

Cherif Guermat

Cherif Guermat is a professor of finance at Bristol Business School, University of the West of England. His research interests include empirical finance, innovation and higher education, and international business.