Vzdelanie a výkonnosť ekonomiky
EDUCATION AND PERFORMANCE OF THE ECONOMY

Summary/Abstract: The most complicated problem of assessing the economic effectiveness of education dwells in determining its contribution to the economy performance and growth. The problem is not only a qualified economic theory, but also the lack of consistent data. This is particularly true with the transition economies. The article is based on assump-tions that education of the population and its structure are not the only factor, but also a function of the economic level in a country. The existence of close links between the GDP/capita level and the educational structure are illustrated in Table 1. Norway with a high share of GDP/capita has a distinctly different structure of education of the popula-tion than for example Portugal with a lower share of GDP/capita. These links justify a possibility how to make use of the educational structure of population for the assessment on contributions of education to the performance of economy. For the purpose of our analysis, a model of linear multiple correlation in the form (1) is used: H = a . V + b . S + c . Z (1) where H – GDP/capita in purchasing power parity V – share of university educated population in total of 25–64 aged persons (%) S – share of secondary educated population in total of 25–64 aged persons (%) Z – share of elementary educated population in total of 25–64 aged persons (%) a, b, c – regression coefficients (constants). After calculating a, b, c coefficients from Table 1 we arrive at the empiric relation (2): H = 241.9 . V + 259.8 . S + 71.8 . Z (2) (The coefficient of determination: 0.988, level of significance below 2.6 %.) Since the a, b, c coefficients reflect the socio-economic and technology conditions of selected countries mentioned in Table 1, there can be raised a question, how would the economy of the Slovak Republic look like with similar socio-economic and technology conditions. If substituting data in relation (2) the GDP/capita should amount to USD 17 472. In fact it was only USD 8003, i. e. 45.8 %. Surprisingly, this result matched the findings of other researchers according to which the labour productivity in the Slovak Republic accounted roughly for 46 % on the productivity level of advanced countries. If we accept an assumption generally approved by the economic theory, the eco-nomic performance is in proportion with its production factors, in our case it is the education and other production factors....

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