That study is outdated, artificially recreates some of the educational data, and does not address two keys points I made that you skipped over: 1. If you are al

That study is outdated, artificially recreates some of the educational data, and does not address two keys points I made that you skipped over: 1. If you are always behind other countries in education it of course will not offer as much of a competitive advantage. 2. Quantity of education is an almost useless measure. It's quality of education that should be interesting in terms of driving economic growth. Even their conclusion "the evidence favors..." is far less strong than your insistence that growth is definitely the causation. This is exactly why I always ask for sources. From a more recent study that includes some meta-analysis: > The relationship between cognitive skills and economic growth has now been demonstrated in a range of studies. As reviewed in Hanushek and Woessmann (2008), these studies employ measures of cognitive skills that draw upon the international testing of PISA and of TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) (along with earlier versions of these). The uniform result is that the international achievement measures provide an accurate measure of the skills of the labour force in different countries and that these skills are closely tied to economic outcomes. [1] > Second, to tackle the most obvious reverse-causality issues, Hanushek and Woessmann (2009) separate the timing of the analysis by estimating the effect of scores on tests conducted until the early 1980s on economic growth in 1980-2000. In this analysis, available for a smaller sample of countries only, test scores pre-date the growth period. The estimate shows a significant positive effect that is about twice as large as the coefficient used in the simulations here. In addition, reverse causality from growth to test scores is also unlikely because additional resource in the school system (which might become affordable with increased growth) do not relate systematically to improved test scores (e.g. Hanushek, 2002). [1] Before you get too excited that the study focuses on test scores, rather than education, I recommend you read the study. By now it's clear to me that you're operating on confirmation bias for a personal theory you favor rather than having evaluated all of the available and most recent studies. You're working only to prove yourself right and not putting effort into proving yourself wrong. So I'm going to stop here. [1] http://www.oecd.org/pisa/44417824.pdf http://www.oecd.org/pisa/44417824.pdf