Measuring social returns to higher education investments in Hong Kong : production function approach

This paper uses the growth model involving an aggregate production function to measure the social benefits from human capital improvements due to the investments in higher education. This is in contrast to previous studies using individual wage increment approach for the measurement. Social welfare benefits reported in this paper encompass the overall effects of labor force quality improvement on real GDP growth. Social returns from Hong Kong's investments in higher education calculated using the production function approach are significantly larger than those computed using the wage increment method. Our results also show that social returns on higher education investments in Hong Kong have declined rapidly over the last 10 years.