1887

OECD Economics Department Working Papers

Working papers from the Economics Department of the OECD that cover the full range of the Department’s work including the economic situation, policy analysis and projections; fiscal policy, public expenditure and taxation; and structural issues including ageing, growth and productivity, migration, environment, human capital, housing, trade and investment, labour markets, regulatory reform, competition, health, and other issues.

The views expressed in these papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries.

English, French

Does Human Capital Matter for Growth in OECD Countries?

Evidence from Pooled Mean-Group Estimates

This paper presents empirical estimates of human-capital augmented growth equations for a panel of 21 OECD countries over the period 1971-98. It uses an improved dataset on human capital and a novel econometric technique that reconciles growth model assumptions with the needs of panel data regressions. Unlike several previous studies, our results point to a positive and significant impact of human capital accumulation to output per capita growth. The estimated long-run effect on output of one additional year of education (about 6 per cent) is also consistent with microeconomic evidence on the private returns to schooling. We also found a significant growth effect from the accumulation of physical capital and a speed of convergence to the steady state of around 15 per cent per year. Taken together these results are not consistent with the human capital augmented version of the Solow model, but rather they support an endogenous growth model à la Uzawa-Lucas, with constant returns to ...

English

Keywords: human capital, panel data, growth
JEL: O15: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development / Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration; O11: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development / Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; O41: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity / One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
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