More knowledge means economic growth, reports say

More education - along with more innovation and more telephones - can equal better economic growth, two unrelated studies show.

A World Bank study says an increase of 20 percent in the average years of schooling of a population tends to increase the average annual economic growth by 0.15 percent.

In terms of innovation, a 20 percent increase in the annual number of United States patents granted is associated with an increase of 3.8 percentage points in annual economic growth.

When the ICT infrastructure, measured by the number of telephones per 1,000 persons, is increased by 20 percent, annual economic growth tends to increase by 0.11 percentage point.

A US National Bureau of Economic Research study argues that the percentage of workers with college degrees is a "powerful predictor of urban growth" and that a large population of skilled, educated workers appears to be the key factor in determining whether declining urban areas could rebuild economically.

The World Bank study.

The NBER study.