This paper aims to reconcile evidence from microeconometric and empirical macro growth literature on the effect of schooling on income and GDP growth. Microeconometric studies suggest that education significantly increases individual income, while recent macro growth studies find that increases in educational attainment are unrelated to economic growth at the national level. The authors argue that this discrepancy is largely due to measurement errors in cross-country education data, which are often derived from enrollment flows and are highly unreliable. After accounting for these errors, the effect of changes in educational attainment on income growth in cross-country data is at least as significant as the rate of return to years of schooling. The paper also shows that the positive effect of initial education on economic growth, as found in macro growth models, is sensitive to econometric assumptions that are often rejected by the data. Relaxing these assumptions reveals that the positive effect of initial education on growth is primarily observed in countries with very low levels of education. The authors conclude that while the strong evidence supports the Mincerian wage equation in micro studies, the evidence for a positive effect of education on national growth is less robust.This paper aims to reconcile evidence from microeconometric and empirical macro growth literature on the effect of schooling on income and GDP growth. Microeconometric studies suggest that education significantly increases individual income, while recent macro growth studies find that increases in educational attainment are unrelated to economic growth at the national level. The authors argue that this discrepancy is largely due to measurement errors in cross-country education data, which are often derived from enrollment flows and are highly unreliable. After accounting for these errors, the effect of changes in educational attainment on income growth in cross-country data is at least as significant as the rate of return to years of schooling. The paper also shows that the positive effect of initial education on economic growth, as found in macro growth models, is sensitive to econometric assumptions that are often rejected by the data. Relaxing these assumptions reveals that the positive effect of initial education on growth is primarily observed in countries with very low levels of education. The authors conclude that while the strong evidence supports the Mincerian wage equation in micro studies, the evidence for a positive effect of education on national growth is less robust.