Human Capital and Education Returns Lab

Quantifying the economic returns to education in the U.S. and around the world

 Lab Director

https://harryapatrinos.substack.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hpatrinos/

https://hpatrinos.com

Department Head and 21st Century Endowed Chair in Education Policy, University of Arkansas

Former Senior Adviser, Education, World Bank

Lab Advisor

George Psacharopoulos, Ph.D.

A world-renowned economist and a founding father of the economics of education whose pioneering work in human capital theory transformed global development policy. After earning his PhD from the University of Chicago in he taught at the London School of Economics before leading the Education and Social Policy Department at the World Bank from 1981 to 1998. He is most famous for his extensive datasets on the rate of return to schooling, which helped shift international funding away from vocational tracks toward universal primary schooling. A prolific scholar with over 500 publications and 40,000 citations, his landmark book Returns to Education was recently honored with 50th-anniversary special editions in leading journals throughout 2024 and 2025.

Research Team (Current Members)

Featured Publications

1. Returns to Investment in Education: A Decennial Review of the Global Literature (with Psacharopoulos G), Education Economics, 26(5): 445–458, 2018.
2. Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update (with Psacharopoulos G), Education Economics, 12(2): 111–134, 2004.
3. A Data Set of Comparable Estimates of the Private Rate of Return to Schooling in the World, 1970–2014 (with Montenegro C), International Journal of Manpower, 44(6): 1248–1268, 2023.
4. The Returns to Education Turn 50: Reflections on the Work of George Psacharopoulos, Education Economics, 32(5): 557–560.
5. Estimating the Return to Schooling Using the Mincer Equation, IZA World of Labor, 2024: 278.

• Education and Earnings in Arkansas (with Rivera A), IZA Discussion Paper No. 17963, 2025.
• Patrinos, H.A. and Rivera-Olvera, A., 2025. The Returns to Education over time and the Effect of COVID-19. Applied Economics, pp.1-13.
• Returns to Education in the Russian Federation (with Melianova et al), HSE Economic Journal, 2021.
• Returns to Investment in Education: The Case of Turkey (with Tansel A, Psacharopoulos G), Applied Economics, 2020.
• Returns to Education in Azerbaijan (with Garcia), Problems of Economic Transition, 2019.
• Adult Literacy, Heterogeneity and Returns to Schooling in Chile (with Sakellariou), Education Economics, 2015.
• The Screening Hypothesis and Returns to Schooling in Argentina (with Savanti), Research in Applied Economics, 2014.
• Non-linearities in the Returns to Education in Mexico (with Garcia-Moreno), Empirical Economics Letters, 2013.
• School Quality and Returns to Schooling: Chile’s 1981 Voucher Reform (with Sakellariou), World Development, 2011.

Data, Tools, and Resources

• International datasets
• Policy briefs and summaries
• Interactive charts and visualizations (coming soon)

Policy & Media Impact

• U.S. state policy debates
• National and state education reforms
• World Bank human capital strategies
• G20 and OECD discussions
• Major media coverage and interviews

News and Updates

• New research releases
• Conference presentations and keynote talks
• Media interviews
• Student and alumni achievements

Engage with the HCER Lab