Economic growth depends on several factors, but a new study (forthcoming) by Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann shows nothing is more important for development than equitable education. Hanushek is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and in this podcast, he says skill differences account for three-quarters of cross-country variations in long-term growth. Hanushek also says the global skills deficit is immense, with two-thirds or more of the world’s youth never reaching even basic skill levels. Hanushek and Woessmann are coauthors of The Basic Skills Gap published in Finance and Development where they say reaching the goal of global universal basic skills would raise future world GDP by $700 trillion over the remainder of the century. Transcript: https://bit.ly/3AqSxCE Read the article at IMF.org/fandd