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Human capital, the structure of production, and growth

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  • Papaioannou, Elias
  • Ciccone, Antonio

Abstract

Do high levels of human capital foster economic growth by facilitating technology adoption? If so, countries with more human capital should have adopted more rapidly the skilled-labor augmenting technologies becoming available since the 1970's. High human capital levels should therefore have translated into fast growth in more compared to less human-capital-intensive industries in the 1980's. Theories of international specialization point to human capital accumulation as another important determinant of growth in human-capital-intensive industries. Using data for a large sample of countries, we find significant positive effects of human capital levels and human capital accumulation on output and employment growth in human-capitalintensive industries. JEL Classification: E13, F11, O11

Suggested Citation

  • Papaioannou, Elias & Ciccone, Antonio, 2006. "Human capital, the structure of production, and growth," Working Paper Series 623, European Central Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2006623
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    Keywords

    growth; human capital; structure of production;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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