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Catch me if you learn: development-specific education and economic growth

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  • F. Manca
  • F. Cerina

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of the relationship between human capital composition and economic growth. In the theoretical analysis, we allow for non-constant returns to scale in technological activities. Differently from previous literature, our results show that, under broad and plausible model parameterizations, the marginal growth effect of skilled workers is increasing with the distance to the frontier for sufficiently poor countries while it is decreasing (in agreement with the existing literature) only for countries close to the technological frontier. Our empirical analysis provides robust evidence for this theoretical prediction using a 10-year panel of 85 countries for the years in between 1960 and 2000 as well as using System GMM technique to address the problem of endogeneity. Results are robust to different proxies of human capital and different specifications.

Suggested Citation

  • F. Manca & F. Cerina, 2012. "Catch me if you learn: development-specific education and economic growth," Working Paper CRENoS 201225, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    • Handle: RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201225
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    Cited by:

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    2. Tanaka Masashi, 2020. "Changing demand for general skills, technological uncertainty, and economic growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-25, January.
    3. repec:prg:jnlpep:v:preprint:id:689:p:1-16 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Sara Barcenilla & Gregorio Gimenez & Carmen López-Pueyo, 2019. "Differences in Total Factor Productivity Growth in the European Union: The role of Human Capital by Income Level," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2019(1), pages 70-85.

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    Keywords

    unskilled; technological frontier; skilled; innovation; imitation; human capital; growth;
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