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A New Index of Human Capital to Predict Economic Growth

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  • Henry Laverde
  • Juan C. Correa
  • Klaus Jaffe

Abstract

The accumulation of knowledge required to produce economic value is a process that often relates to nations economic growth. Such a relationship, however, is misleading when the proxy of such accumulation is the average years of education. In this paper, we show that the predictive power of this proxy started to dwindle in 1990 when nations schooling began to homogenized. We propose a metric of human capital that is less sensitive than average years of education and remains as a significant predictor of economic growth when tested with both cross-section data and panel data. We argue that future research on economic growth will discard educational variables based on quantity as predictor given the thresholds that these variables are reaching.

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  • Henry Laverde & Juan C. Correa & Klaus Jaffe, 2018. "A New Index of Human Capital to Predict Economic Growth," Papers 1807.07051, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1807.07051
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    3. Altinok, Nadir & Murseli, Hatidje, 2007. "International database on human capital quality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 237-244, August.
    4. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    5. Cawley, John & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2011. "The Economics of Risky Health Behaviors," Handbook of Health Economics, in: Mark V. Pauly & Thomas G. Mcguire & Pedro P. Barros (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 95-199, Elsevier.
    6. David M. Cutler & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "Education and Health: Evaluating Theories and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 12352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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