New Developments in Education Demand: International Empirical Evidences

Abstract

This paper reviews the main economic theories and international empirical applications that analyze demand for education. The document begins with a review of the theoretical background since the appearance of human capital theory proposed by Becker (1964), which made way to the emergence of the Economics of Education in the mid-twentieth century. The other theories that are reviewed have emerged around the proposed by Gary Becker and from them we can mention: the consumption model originally developed by Schaafsma (1976) and Lazear (1977), the current credentialist defended by authors such as Arrow (1973) and Spence (1973), institutionalist theory developed by Doering and Piore (1971) and Thurrow (1975), radical theories written by Bowles and Gintis (1975), the topic of the capabilities proposed by Sen (1999) and modern eclectic vision by Blaug (1976), Moreno (1998) and San Segundo (2001). The review of empirical applications focuses on models that analyze characteristics that influence the demand for post-compulsory education, because it is this demand for education where the person or his family have choice. Some of the characteristics that determine the demand for education are those of the individual, social background factors, the socioeconomic environment, skills and institutional environment, among others. Finally, the methodology commonly used for this kind of empirical studies is the Microeconometrics, especially discrete choice models estimated by the Maximum-Likelihood method.