Un siècle d'éducation 1870-2010

Christian Morrisson, Fabrice Murtin, "The century of education" - PSE working paper n^o 2008-22
    Forthcoming Journal of Human Capital

Graph of average years of schoolingduring century  and annex with historical information  

Based on earlier work by Daniel Cohen and Marcelo Soto (2007), Christian Morrisson and Fabrice Murtin (2009) have constructed an original database on education pertaining to 74 countries since 1870.
The authors use data on total enrolment in primary and secondary schooling and at university to estimate average years of schooling using perpetual inventory methods. Several difficulties arise due to missing data. They use some simulations to assess the quality of schooling estimates and show that most of them become reliable around 1900. Then, they extend the series over the period 1960-2010 using the Cohen and Soto (2007) database, which relies mainly on surveys and accounts for differential mortality across age groups. The correlation between the two sets of average years of schooling in 1960 is equal to 0.96. They use a measurement error framework to merge the two databases, while correcting for differential mortality across educational groups. In addition to the main paper, an annex provides complementary information on the building of the data.
Descriptive statistics show a continuous spread of education that has accelerated in the second half of the twentieth century. Morrisson and Murtin (2009) find evidence of fast convergence in years of schooling for a sub-sample of advanced countries during the 1870-1914 globalization period, and of modest convergence since 1980. Less advanced countries have been excluded from the convergence club in both cases.
Interestingly, this database can be used to tackle several issues linked to the mechanics of economic development on the long run, as it enables panel data analysis since 1870. For instance, Christian Morrisson and Fabrice Murtin (2008) use global data on income inequality built by Francois Bourguignon and Christian Morrisson (2002) to show that average education has been the key determinant of income inequality over the XX^th century. Similarly, Murtin (2009) finds that education is the most robust explanation of the decline in fertility in the course of economic development, and Murtin-Wacziarg (2009) show that primary schooling has been a significant and robust determinant of the emergence of democracy since 1870.

accès aux données [dernière mise à jour : juillet 2009] : ParisSchoolingEstimates.xls

Distribution mondiale au XIX^ème siècle

François Bourguignon, Christian Morrisson, "Inequality among World Citizens: 1820-1992", paru dans The American Economic Review, Vol 92 n^o4, September 1992

accès au site : http://www.delta.ens.fr/XIX/

Données de démographie historique