The Race between Education and Technology

Masterful...As the book's title suggests, whether inequality increases or not is best thought of as an ongoing race between education and technology. Combining this simple but appealing idea with a deep knowledge of the histories of the U.S. labor market and educational institutions, Goldin and Katz conclude that whereas education was winning the race for most of the 20th century, technology caught up in the 1970s and has since prevailed. The authors' most insightful point is that the root cause of the recent growth in inequality is not faster technological progress during the past three decades but rather the surprising stagnation in the level of education of young Americans. -- Thomas Lemieux * Science *
Pathbreaking research, deeply grounded in history yet hugely relevant to the present…a model of what social science should be. -- Paul Krugman * New York Times *
A powerfully told story about how and why the United States became the world's richest nation—namely, thanks to its schools...Beginning in the 1970s, however, the education system failed to keep pace, resulting [in] a sharply unequal nation...It is nice to be reminded, in a data-rich book, that greater investments in human capital once put Americans collectively on top of the world. -- Stephen Kotkin * New York Times *
A staggering achievement of historical research and analysis and required reading for anyone who's tired of glib, ideologically-inspired, trendy prescriptions for how to fix America's education system. -- Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind
Important…Goldin and Katz crunch the data and conclude that America’s edge in mass education was the crucial competitive advantage that allowed the United States to build wealth while reducing income inequality. For most of the 20th century, America prospered at the same time that the gap between the rich and poor diminished. -- Nicholas D. Kristof * New York Times *
Essential reading...Goldin and Katz give a broad historical view of the role of education in economic growth in the US. They make the case that, after a century of leading the world in supplying the educated workers needed to serve technology, the U.S. has fallen behind in education. -- Thomas F. Cooley * Forbes *
Goldin and Katz's book is excellent. -- Jim Manzi * New Republic *
This is the most important book on modern US inequality to date. -- Tyler Cowen * Marginal Revolution *
As Goldin and Katz have argued, the 20th century was the American century in large part because it was the human-capital century. Education—knowledge—can help people live better by allowing them to learn from past errors and make new discoveries…The evidence is everywhere. Today, high school graduates earn more and are less likely to be out of work than people without a high school diploma, as has been the case for more than a century. College graduates earn more yet. Not only does mass education increase the size of the economic pie; it also evens out the distribution. -- David Leonhardt * New York Times *
[Goldin and Katz] tackle the most important U.S. economic trend, and, hence, most critical domestic issue—growing income inequality...[America] now has the most unequal income and wage distributions of any high-income nation...Goldin and Katz's careful documentation of the changes in income distribution is an important public service. This alone would make their book essential reading. Yet they also offer a powerful explanation for what has driven changes in income inequality and point to solutions for addressing it...The good news is that if Goldin and Katz are right, the cure for income inequality is one most Americans would intuitively support: improving mass education. -- Chrystia Freeland * Financial Times *
A definitive economic history of American education...tightly reasoned and easy to grasp by anyone who cares about the country's educational history. -- Peter H. Lindert * eh.net *
A masterful work by two leading economists on some of the biggest issues in economics: economic growth, human capital, and inequality. There are fundamental insights in the book, not just about our past but also our future. Rigorous but not overly technical, this beautifully written book will appeal to educated lay people and economists alike. -- Steven D. Levitt, University of Chicago, co-author of Freakonomics
This book represents the best of what economics has to offer, combining a broad theoretical perspective, careful consideration of data, detailed lessons from economic history, and a close look at the present. -- Alan Krueger, Princeton University
The Race Between Education and Technology will stand as the definitive treatment of changes in income distribution and their causes, as well as of possible countervailing policies towards rising inequality. This is empirical economic scholarship at its finest. -- Lawrence Summers, Harvard University
An impressive combination of extensive historical research, careful empirical analysis, and thoughtful commentary on one of the most important questions of the day: to what extent does increasing inequality in incomes stem from our failure to increase educational attainment? -- William G. Bowen, President Emeritus, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
A most important study, both for what it teaches us about the past and also in presenting policies for the future if America is to regain its world leadership in education. -- Stanley Engerman, University of Rochester
The general brilliance of illumination makes this book a feast of provocation. -- Trevor Butterworth * Forbes.com *
One of the most comprehensive analyses of the spread of the American educational system throughout the 20th century. -- Eduardo Porter * New York Times *
Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz’s magnum opus…[An] impressive work…Enlightens us to rethink the social-economic and cultural environment of education, the close relationship between education and technology, and the fundamental aims of education. -- Shiyu Xu * Beijing International Review of Education *