پژوهشهای اقتصادی (Dec 2020)
Investigation of Iranian Higher Education Efficiency in Line with Sustainable Development
Abstract
As higher education plays an exceptional role in training skilled and creative labor force, today, not only developed countries but even many developing countries devote a major share of their GDP to higher education, intending to expand both quantity and quality of their higher education to speed up the trend of growth and development. In this article, applying the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, first the efficiency of Iranian higher education is investigated with respect to sustainable development and environmental considerations. Then, applying the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) model, the efficiency of Iranian higher education is evaluated with respect to realization of a continuous growth during 1990-2015. The results of the first model show an inefficient performance of Iranian higher education with respect to sustainable development. The second model indicates the following results: First, that the increase of productivity in higher education has a positive and significant influence on economic growth. Second, that investment in higher education has a positive impact on economic growth after two lags, showing that in higher education long run policies are more effective on economic growth than short run ones. Third, that the investment on higher education is less effective on economic growth than investment on public education.
