영어능력과 인적자본, 그리고 국가 경제성장과의 관계 연구: OECD 비영어권 국가들을 중심으로

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Main Topic: The Relationship Between English Language Proficiency and the National Economic Performance: Focusing on non-English-Speaking OECD Countries.
This study aims at investigating how English proficiency affects economic development of a country by analyzing the relationships among English proficiency, economic activities (amount of trade, R&D investment, etc), and the rate of economic growth, focusing on twenty-one non-English-speaking OECD countries. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Seemingly Unrelated Regression Estimation (SURE) were used for the data analysis in the study. The findings reveals that there existed little statistical significance to support the fact that English proficiency was directly related to the economic development in a positive way in many countries except Mexico, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Poland. However, English proficiency indirectly influenced the economic development in the way of increasing the amount of trade. These results can lead to the conclusion that English proficiency is not a sufficient element but a necessary one. Furthermore, it is expected that English proficiency can positively affect the economic development when it plays a part as sufficient complementary goods which make up for physical capital, technology accumulation, political stability, and worthy government.

Subtopic(1):Linguistic and Educational Factors Affecting TOEFL Scores: Focusing on Three OECD Countries in EFL contexts.
This study aims at investigating the linguistic and educational factors affecting TOEFL scores, focusing on three OECD countries, Korea, Japan, and Finland. The data comprise document analysis on curriculums, websites, and literature. The findings reveal that the number of Korean test-takers and their TOEFL scores gradually increased year by year. Finnish test-takers consistently gained greatly high scores, and Japanese examinees showed the lowest scores. The languages Korean, Japanese, and Finnish are all far distant from English and receive little support on historical grounds from the Indo-European family tree. In Finland, however, Swedish which belongs to Indo-European languages is still used as an official language with Finnish. Korea and Finland adopt English education from Year 3 in primary school, whereas English is not an official subject in primary school at present in Japan. Finnish students are taught a foreign language in addition to English from primary school. These seem to support the result of the high TOEFL scores of Finnish test-takers. This study concludes that social context which includes linguistic and educational environments are the main factors which affect TOEFL scores.

Subtopic(2):The Relationship Between English Language Proficiency and the National Economic Performance: Focusing on non-English-Speaking OECD Countries.
This study aims at investigating how English proficiency affects economic development of a country by analyzing the relationships among English proficiency, economic activities (amount of trade, R&D investment, etc), and the rate of economic growth, focusing on twenty-one non-English-speaking OECD countries. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Seemingly Unrelated Regression Estimation (SURE) were used for the data analysis in the study. The findings reveals that there existed little statistical significance to support the fact that English proficiency was directly related to the economic development in a positive way in many countries except Mexico, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Poland. However, English proficiency indirectly influenced the economic development in the way of increasing the amount of trade. These results can lead to the conclusion that English proficiency is not a sufficient element but a necessary one. Furthermore, it is expected that English proficiency can positively affect the economic development when it plays a part as sufficient complementary goods which make up for physical capital, technology accumulation.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

1. 대주제: 영어능력과 국가 경제성장과의 관계: OECD 비영어권 국가들을 중심으로
본 연구는 비영어권 OECD 21개 국가들을 대상으로 영어능력과 경제활동(국가별 무역량, R&D투자 등), 그리고 경제 성장률과의 관계 분석을 통하여 영어능력이 국가의 경제성장에 미치는 영향을 실증적으로 규명하고자 하였다. 단순회귀분석(OLS)과 표면상무관회귀분석(Seemingly Unrelated Regression Estimation: SURE)의 기법을 사용하여 추정한 결과 체코, 핀란드, 그리고 폴란드를 제외한 여타 국가들에서는 영어능력이 직접적으로 경제성장에 정(+)의 효과를 미친다는 통계학적 유의성이 발견되지 않았다. 그러나 영어 능력은 무역량 증진의 기여를 통하여 간접적으로 경제성장에 영향을 끼치는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 영어능력은 경제성장에 있어서 하나의 필요조건이지 충분조건은 아닌 것으로 결론 지울 수 있다. 더불어 영어능력은 최소한의 물적 자본과, 기술축적, 정치적 안정, 그리고 훌륭한 통치를 보완하는 충분한 보완재 역할을 담당한다면 경제성장에 긍정적인 영향을 끼칠 것이 예상된다.

2. 소주제(1): Linguistic and Educational Factors Affecting TOEFL Scores: Focusing on Three OECD Countries in EFL conte
This study aims at investigating the linguistic and educational factors affecting TOEFL scores, focusing on three OECD countries, Korea, Japan, and Finland. The data comprise document analysis on curriculums, websites, and literature. The findings reveal that the number of Korean test-takers and their TOEFL scores gradually increased year by year. Finnish test-takers consistently gained greatly high scores, and Japanese examinees showed the lowest scores. The languages Korean, Japanese, and Finnish are all far distant from English and receive little support on historical grounds from the Indo-European family tree. In Finland, however, Swedish which belongs to Indo-European languages is still used as an official language with Finnish. Korea and Finland adopt English education from Year 3 in primary school, whereas English is not an official subject in primary school at present in Japan. Finnish students are taught a foreign language in addition to English from primary school. These seem to support the result of the high TOEFL scores of Finnish test-takers. This study concludes that social context which includes linguistic and educational environments are the main factors which affect TOEFL scores.

3. 소주제(2): 인적자본형성으로서의 교육투자와 경제성장과의 관계: OECD 비영어권 국가들을 중심으로
최근 지식기반경제로의 진입과 함께 인적자본형성으로서의 교육에 관한 문제는 모든 국가들에 있어서 중요한 관심의 대상이 되고 있다. 본 연구는 1970년-2008년 기간 동안 비영어권 OECD 10개 국가들을 대상으로 교육투자와 경제성장과의 관계를 단순회귀분석(OLS) 및 표면상무관회귀분석(Seemingly Unrelated Regression Estimation: SURE) 기법을 사용하여 추정하여 상호 비교분석 하였다. 분석 결과 인적자본의 형성과 관련된 변수들의 추정에서는 교육투자를 비롯하여 R&D투자 및 출산율 모두 통계적 유의성이 높게 나왔으며 또한 경제성장에 정(+)의 영향을 주는 것으로 나타났다. 이들 중 경제성장에 가장 큰 영향을 주는 요소로는 출산율이었으며 다음으로 R&D 투자, 교육투자 순으로 나타났다. 특히 출산율계수의 크기는 R&D 투자의 1.8배, 교육투자의 약 3.5배의 크기로 나타나고 있어 각 국가들의 지속적인 경제성장을 위해서는 R&D투자 및 교육투자뿐만 아니라 출산율 촉진정책도 동시에 고려되어져야 할 것으로 보인다.