Resumen: The theme of this essay is one of the most important addressed by economists, at least since Adam Smith, and one that will always attract attention. And in our case, that of economists who have witnessed a country and a time whose rates of increase in GDP per capita have gone in about...

In 1960 Theodore Schultz expounded a human capital theory of economic growth that includes three elements: 1) Countries without much human capital cannot manage physical capital effectively, 2) Economic growth can only proceed if physical capital and human capital rise together, and 3) Human...

This article presents revised estimates of the external rates of return on investment in schooling provided in “Schooling and National Income: How Large Are the Externalities?” The analysis is based on data for the same set of countries, but it incorporates methodological improvements that...

The marginal product of human capital in Mankiw, Romer, and Weil´s [1992] augmented Solow model measures the direct and two external effects of human capital created from schooling on national income. If this model is valid, its estimates of the share of this marginal product accruing to...

This article presents revised estimates of the external rates of return on investment in schooling provided in Schooling and National Income: How Large Are the Externalities?" The analysis is based on data for the same set of countries, but it incorporates methodological improvements that yield...

This article presents revised estimates of the external rates of return on investment in schooling provided in “Schooling and National Income: How Large Are the Externalities?” The analysis is based on data for the same set of countries, but it incorporates methodological improvements that...

This paper uses a new data set for cumulative national investment in formal schooling and a newinstrument for schooling to estimate the national return on investment in 61 countries. These estimates are combined with data on the private rate of return on investment in schooling to estimate the...

In 1960 Theodore Schultz expounded a human capital theory of economic growth that includes three elements: 1) Countries without much human capital cannot manage physical capital effectively, 2) Economic growth can only proceed if physical capital and human capital rise together, and 3) Human...

I estimate a Solow model augmented with human capital in 42 countries for 1910-2000. Estimated TFP growth is 0.3%/year, and the steady-state rate for GDP/capita is 1.0%/year. Implicitly for high-income countries maintaining growth above this rate will be increasingly difficult.

Annual growth in GDP/adult in Japan has declined from over 10% in 1969 to an average of 1% since the financial crisis in 1991. I show that a dynamic Solow growth model, augmented with human capital, weekly labor-hours, and oil prices, explains Japan’s annual growth rates from 1969 to 2007 as...