Human capital and growth in cross-country regressions

The determinants of economic growth and investment are analyzed in a panel of around 100 countries observed from 1960 to 1995. The data reveal a pattern of conditional convergence in the sense that the growth rate of per capita GDP is inversely related to the starting level of per capita GDP, holding fixed measures of government policies and institutions and the character of the national population. For given values of these variables, growth is positively related to the starting level of average years of school attainment of adult males at the secondary and higher levels. Growth is insignificantly related to years of school attainment of females at these levels or to years of primary attainment by either sex. The strong effect of secondary and higher schooling suggests a paramount role for the diffusion of technology. The weak effect of female schooling suggests that women’s human capital is not well exploited in the labor markets of many countries. Data on students ’ scores on internationally comparable examinations are used to measure the quality of schooling. Scores on science tests have a particularly strong positive relation with economic growth. If science scores are held fixed, then results on

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