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Schooling, Cognitive Skills, and the Latin American Growth Puzzle

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Listed author(s):
  • Eric A. Hanushek
  • Ludger Woessmann

Abstract

Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which Latin American countries consistently perform at the bottom. In growth models estimated across world regions, these low levels of cognitive skills can account for the poor growth performance of Latin America. Given the limitations of worldwide tests in discriminating performance at low levels, we also introduce measures from two regional tests designed to measure performance for all Latin American countries with internationally comparable income data. Our growth analysis using these data confirms the significant effects of cognitive skills on intra-regional variations. Splicing the new regional tests into the worldwide tests, we also confirm this effect in extended worldwide regressions, although it appears somewhat smaller in the regional Latin American data than in the worldwide data.

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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number 2667.

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Date of creation: 2009
Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2667
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
  • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

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  1. Mikael Lindahl & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Education for Growth: Why and for Whom?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1101-1136, December.
  2. Benhabib, Jess & Spiegel, Mark M., 2005. "Human Capital and Technology Diffusion," Handbook of Economic Growth,in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 935-966 Elsevier.
  3. George Psacharopoulos & Harry Anthony Patrinos, 2004. "Returns to investment in education: a further update," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 111-134.
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  6. Daniel Cohen & Marcelo Soto, 2007. "Growth and human capital: good data, good results," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 51-76, March.
  7. Hanushek, Eric A., 2002. "Publicly provided education," Handbook of Public Economics,in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 30, pages 2045-2141 Elsevier.
  8. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
  9. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
  10. Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2008. "The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 607-668, September.
  11. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
  12. Jerik Hanushek & Dennis Kimko, 2006. "Schooling, Labor-force Quality, and the Growth of Nations," Educational Studies, Higher School of Economics, issue 1, pages 154-193.
  13. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
  14. Eric A. Hanushek & Lei Zhang, 2006. "Quality-Consistent Estimates of International Returns to Skill," NBER Working Papers 12664, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  15. Peter J. Klenow & Mark Bils, 2000. "Does Schooling Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1160-1183, December.
  16. Jere R. Behrman & Nancy Birdsall & Miguel Székely, 2007. "Economic Policy Changes and Wage Differentials in Latin America," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56, pages 57-97.
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Cited by:

  1. Peter H. Lindert, 2009. "Revealing Failures in the History of School Finance," NBER Working Papers 15491, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 2013. "Human development in Africa: A long-run perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-204.
  3. Arlette Beltrán & Janice Seinfeld, 2011. "Hacia una educación de calidad en el Perú: El heterogéneo impacto de la educación inicial sobre el rendimiento escolar," Working Papers 11-06, Departamento de Economía, Universidad del Pacífico, revised Sep 2011.
  4. Hanushek, Eric A. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2012. "Schooling, educational achievement, and the Latin American growth puzzle," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 497-512.
  5. Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Dario Maldonado & Catherine Rodríguez, 2012. "Calidad de la educación básica y media en Colombia: diagnóstico y propuestas," DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO 010078, UNIVERSIDAD DEL ROSARIO.
  6. Christian Daude, 2012. "Development Accounting: Lessons for Latin America," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 313, OECD Publishing.
  7. Metzler, Johannes & Woessmann, Ludger, 2012. "The impact of teacher subject knowledge on student achievement: Evidence from within-teacher within-student variation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 486-496.
  8. Harinder Kohli & Claudio Loser & Anil Sood (ed.), 2013. "Latin America 2040 — Breaking Away from Complacency: An Agenda for Resurgence — Second Edition," Books, Emerging Markets Forum, edition 2, number latam2040v2.
  9. Bagatella-Flores, N. & Rodríguez-Achach, M. & Coronel-Brizio, H.F. & Hernández-Montoya, A.R., 2015. "Wealth distribution of simple exchange models coupled with extremal dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 417(C), pages 168-175.
  10. Juan Castro & Gustavo Yamada & Omar Arias, 2011. "Higher Education Decisions in Peru: On the Role of Financial Constraints, Skills, and Family Background," Working Papers 11-14, Departamento de Economía, Universidad del Pacífico, revised Dec 2011.
  11. Angrist, Noam & Patrinos, Harry Anthony & Schlotter, Martin, 2013. "An expansion of a global data set on educational quality : a focus on achievement in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6536, The World Bank.
  12. Prakhov Ilya, 2012. "The unified state examination and the determinants of academic achievement: Does investment in pre-entry coaching matter?," EERC Working Paper Series 12/08e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.

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