Does Natural Resource Rent Inhibit the Development of Higher Education？——An Empirical Analysis with Cross-Country Panel Data
Chen Jianwei1 Su Lifeng1 Qi Yu2
(1.Institute of Education and Economy Research， University of International Business and Economics， Beijing 100029；2.School of Public Finance and Taxation， Zhongnan University of Economics and Law， Wuhan 430073)
Abstract：In the last three decades， despite the worldwide expansion of higher education， there are still a large number of developing countries that have stagnated in the improvement of higher education， especially in countries with rich natural resource. By constructing a descriptive theoretical framework， this paper predicts that abundance of natural resource will cause a rent bias of the building of state fiscal capacity， and relatively lower the accumulation of physical and human capital， which is not conducive to the sustainable development of higher education. Using the latest data from World Bank Development Indicators， this paper examines the relationship between natural resource rent and higher education in detail， and the regression results show that natural resource rent does have a significant negative impact on higher education in different specifications. Heterogeneity analysis shows that in low-rent countries that rely more on taxation of capital to finance public expenditure， the negative impact of natural resource rent on higher education is very weak， while the opposite is very strong and significant. Testing the potential mechanism further supports that there are barriers to human capital accumulation in resource rent-oriented countries， and the rent of natural resource hinders the accumulation of physical capital and the growth of capital to labor ratio， thus reducing the investment incentive of human capital which complements physical capital. The instrumental variable regressions that solve the endogeneity also supports the robustness of the conclusions， while the results also show that the rent of natural resource may not be conducive to raising the public expenditure per student as a percentage of GDP per capita and reducing the student-faculty ratio for higher education.
2021, Vol. 60 
