Lately I have been thinking a lot about economic development at the country level. Partly this is due to my interest in the role of education in economic development. Some argue that other social problems need to be fixed before education, such as healthcare and food availability. Some argue that the results of education programs do not produce the economic results to justify the investment, especially when capital is scarce. Some argue that if test scores do not improve, investment in education is not justified. I am pretty certain that these critics of education have framed the problem wrong, but I cannot yet figure out how the problem should be framed. I think that the critics fundamentally do not understand the role of education and that evaluating education in purely economic terms misses the point.
The arguments cited above heavily influence the thinking of the multi-lateral development banks, who in my opinion struggle with education as part of their mission. For example, this recent study from Inter-American Development Bank "The Benefits and Costs of ICT in Education" just seems to draw all the wrong conclusions. The major conclusion is that the use of ICT in schools in Latin America produced no positive results. This conclusion is counter intuitive to me, which means either the problem is framed wrong or the data selected flawed the conclusions. (ICT stands for information and computer technology.)
Part of my problem with the IDB study is that it appears to conflict with a paper by two HBS professors who studied the pace of technology adoption and the effect on economic development. The paper and some commentary are here. The HBS paper concludes that the faster technology is adopted the faster the economic growth. Therefore, the faster ICT is adopted the faster economic growth should be. At least at the intuitive level this conclusion appears logical.
Mostly this post just puts the reader on notice that I will be writing with some frequency in the upcoming months on economic development and the role of education.
The views expressed here are my personal opinions and do not reflect the views of any organization with whom I am affiliated.
