One challenge in education policy is understanding how expanding access to schooling affects entire economies, not just individuals. Most research focuses on the partial effects—like how education changes a single person's earnings—while ignoring broader impacts on wages, jobs, and productivity across regions or countries. If these broader effects are weak or negative (e.g., if more educated workers lead to lower wages due to oversupply), education expansions might not deliver the expected economic benefits.

A Systematic Approach to Measuring Economy-Wide Effects

One way to address this gap is to combine existing research with new data to estimate the general equilibrium (GE) effects of education expansions in low- and middle-income countries. This could involve:

• Reviewing past large-scale education reforms (e.g., Kenya’s free primary education policy) to see if they altered wage structures or employment trends.
• Analyzing recent natural experiments, such as Ghana’s free senior high school program, to measure impacts on labor markets at scale.
• Exploring mechanisms like labor supply shifts, changes in skill demand, or sectoral transitions (e.g., from farming to services).

By comparing micro-level studies with economy-wide data, this approach could reveal whether education expansions actually boost overall incomes or inadvertently create new labor market challenges.

Policymakers, Funders, and Researchers as Key Stakeholders

The findings could help:

• Governments decide whether to invest more in education or pair it with job creation policies.
• Philanthropic organizations assess whether education is a cost-effective way to raise long-term incomes.
• Economists refine models of human capital in developing economies.

Local partnerships could ensure data quality, while workshops and policy briefs might help translate complex results into actionable recommendations.

Testing Assumptions and Scaling Up

A pilot study in one country (e.g., Ghana) could test the methodology before expanding to other regions. Key questions include:

• Do wage surveys align with tax or payroll records?
• Are education policies truly independent of other economic shifts?

If successful, this work could fill a critical gap in how education’s macroeconomic impacts are measured, helping avoid unintended consequences like graduate unemployment.