IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/afe/journl/v7y2005i1p73-109.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human Capital and Economic Growth: Is Africa Different?

Author

Listed:
  • Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong

    (The University of South Florida)

  • Mark Wilson

    (Departement des Sciences Economiques and CIRPEE, Universite du Queebec aa Montreal)

Abstract

This paper investigates the difference in growth effects of human capital in African countries and the rest of the world. Using an expanded neoclassical growth model, panel data, a dynamic panel estimator and a broader definition of human capital including both health and education, we find that the effect of human capital on the growth rate of per capita GDP in Africa does not differ significantly from the growth impact of human capital in the rest of the world. Our results suggest that Africa does not grow any differently than the rest of the world. The observed growth differential between Africa and the rest of the world can be attributed to the fact that Africa has low endowments of growth-enhancing characteristics. Our results suggest that Africa should be treated like any other part of the world and that researchers and policy makers alike should forget about the "African difference," and formulate more efficient growth policies for Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong & Mark Wilson, 2005. "Human Capital and Economic Growth: Is Africa Different?," Journal of African Development, African Finance and Economic Association (AFEA), vol. 7(1), pages 73-109.
    • Handle: RePEc:afe:journl:v:7:y:2005:i:1:p:73-109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.afeawpapers.org/RePEc/afe/afe-journl/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/JAD_vol7_Chp4.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Modesta Chinwe Akunede & Geraldine Ejiaka Nzeribe & Uju Regina Ezenekwe, 2022. "Human Capital Development in Nigeria: Determinants and Challenges," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 6(10), pages 465-476, October.
    2. SAM, Vichet, 2018. "Overeducation among graduates in developing countries: What impact on economic growth?," MPRA Paper 87674, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kodila-Tedika , Oasis, 2014. "Forget your gods: African evidence on the relation between state capacity and cognitive ability of leading politicians," European Economic Letters, European Economics Letters Group, vol. 3(1), pages 7-11.
    4. Amavilah, Voxi Heinrich, 2006. "Intensity of technology use and per capita real GDP across some African countries," MPRA Paper 1675, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:afe:journl:v:7:y:2005:i:1:p:73-109. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Nsiah (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.