[UrsaMedius]

The Swedish report "Education and Economic Development - What does empirical research show about casual inter-relationships?" https://www.regeringen.se/rapporter/2005/12/ess-20054/ asks a similar question and starts its conclusions as follows:

"Our results are potentially contradictory. On the one hand, we have shown that the best studies which used variations in education between countries and regions – here we consider recent studies to be more reliable – indicate that there are no strong external effects from education. On the other hand, we have pointed out that there is strong evidence that education leads to improved health and life expectancy, politically more active citizens, lower crime and possibly that the children of educated persons become more productive. One explanation for these seemingly contradictory results may be that the favourable effects of education are not sufficiently strong to have an impact on economic development. It is also possible that the traditional measure of GDP is too narrow (and perhaps insufficiently stable) to capture the favourable effects."