Quality of Education and Human Capital in Economic Growth: An International Perspective

Abstract: The role of human capital on economic growth has long been articulated in the theoretical literature. However, some of the empirical studies on the impact of human capital on economic growth do not find a significant positive correlation between the two partly because of the quality of the data used. The majority of the past studies used quantity of schooling as opposed to quality of schooling and individual skills as a proxy for human capital. Using comparable educational attainment dataset that accounts for quality of education across countries developed by Barro and Lee (2001), Hanushek and Kimko (2000), and Bosworth and Collins (2003) the current study finds evidence that the quality of education of the population rather than mere quantity of schooling is strongly correlated to earnings and economic growth. The empirical study estimates a benchmark cross-country growth regression and a simple production function using 43 years panel data from 84 countries.

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Authors: Kalyan Chakraborty