China, human capital, and global economic growth

Astonishing new results from Chinese student test scores are being reported in the US newspapers (well, in the NY Times) as something of a 'competitive threat' to future economic prosperity. But is this really a 'bad' thing for Americans that all these exceptionally smart young people are about to join the world economy? Remember again Jones and Romer - they might have to revise their estimates of the global impact of Chinese assimilation even higher now. Plus there may be a further multiplier effect - think of all the extra human capital that will be generated by the (now, hopefully) increased efforts to improve education of all these countries trying to keep up. That increase could arguably be said to be 'caused' by China as well. And, the return to the human capital that a country does have, high or low, will be augmented by the extra stock of knowledge. As a gizmo lover myself, the prospects boggle the mind!

All this potential makes the low educational achievements of many very poor countries all the more tragic, considering what might have been ... next term hopefully we will learn about concrete strategies to help poorer countries harness this amazing source of growth and prosperity.