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The Australian Development Gateway (ADG) strives to support members of the development community in their efforts to reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development in the Asia Pacific region. The site has been created with participation from members of government, private, academia and non-government organisations. User feedback mechanisms have been incorporated to guide future directions of the site. The site is optimised for low bandwidth access to enable the widest participation throughout the Asia Pacific region.

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Education, corruption and growth in developing countries (pdf 276kb)

This paper looks at the impact of corruption on the return to education, and the follow-on impact on economic growth in developing countries. They find that at low level of GDP per head and high level of corruption education spending has no impact on growth.

Education is key in explaining growth. But for a given level of education, what can explain the missing growth in developing countries? Corruption, the poor enforcement of property rights, the government share of GDP, the regulations it imposes might influence the Total Factor Productivity (TFP thereafter) of a country's economic system. A number of empirical papers emphasize the consequences bad institutions have on growth, but few are examining the link between education, corruption (more generally bad institutions), and growth. Our model assumes that at low level of GDP per head and high level of corruption education spending has no impact on growth.

 

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