Regional Bank Conference on Development Economics, Beijing 2007

The annual Regional Bank Conference on Development Economics was held in Beijing from January 16-17, 2007 with a focus on “Higher Education and Development”, a vital topic for East Asia and much of the rest of the developing world.

At relatively low levels of national development, educational policy concentrates on broadening access and improving the quality of primary education. But rising prosperity brings with it structural transformation and productivity shifts that create growing demand for well-educated workers—initially at the secondary level, but increasingly at the university level, often with quite specialized skills. Moving from primary to secondary to tertiary educational levels often raises difficult questions for policymakers.

The conference was opened by Wu Qidi, Vice Minister of Education in China, and featured a keynote speech by Francois Bourguignon on “Global Returns to Higher Education: Trends, Drivers, and Policy Responses”.

Plenary sessions focused on how to organize and finance the higher education sector; the role of skills migration and whether it leads to brain 'drain' or 'brain circulation'; how best to organize higher education institutions to cupport innovation; and the role of labor markets and institutions in facilitating--or hindering -- the accumulation and use of higher education.

Papers will be edited and compiled into a published volume.

For further information on RBCDEs, please contact Boris Pleskovic at bpleskovic@worldbank.org or Leita Jones at ljones@worldbank.org