Human capital spillovers arise when the presence of individuals with high levels of human capital makes others more productive. If the students’ higher achievement scores are associated with human capital spillovers, a social return to education is generated. In this context, this paper developed the rationale and statistic methods for examining the association between regional human capital stocks and student learning outcomes. We used PISA data for Spain from the 2015 wave. On average, 15-year-old students scored 486 points in mathematics, but there were statistically significant differences across the 17 regions of Spain (comunidades autónomas). Three-level regression modeling showed that an extra year of region-level average schooling is associated with PISA math scores 14.5 points higher, after controlling for student and school level variables. We used mediation analysis to test whether educational expectations mediated this effect of regional human capital on student achievement. The mediation analysis showed that students who live in regions with a high prevalence of well-educated residents expect more years of education and perform better on the PISA test. This paper also found that the current expenditure per student in the different comunidades autónomas does not explain the regional differences in math performance.

当具有高水平人力资本的个人的存在使他人提高生产力时，就会出现人力资本外溢。如果学生的较高成就分数与人力资本外溢相关联，就会产生社会教育回报。在此背景下，本文提出了检验区域人力资本存量与学生学习成果之间关系的理论和统计方法。我们使用了2015年浪潮中西班牙的PISA数据。平均而言，15岁的学生在数学上得分486分，但在西班牙的17个地区中，统计学上存在显着差异（comutidadesautónomas）。三级回归模型显示，在控制了学生和学校水平的变量之后，地区水平的平均受教育年限增加了PISA数学分数14.5分。我们使用中介分析来检验教育期望是否介导了区域人力资本对学生成绩的这种影响。中介分析显示，居住在受过良好教育的居民高发地区的学生期望接受更多的教育，并且在PISA测试中表现更好。本文还发现，在不同的社区中，每名学生的当前支出不能解释数学成绩的地区差异。