Existing estimates of the labor-market returns to human capital give a distorted picture of the role of skills across different economies. International comparisons of earnings analyses rely almost exclusively on school attainment measures of human capital, and evidence incorporating direct...

Educational outcomes of children are highly dependent on household and school-level inputs. In poor countries, remittances from migrants can provide additional funds for the education of the left behind. At the same time the absence of migrant parents can affect families' time allocation towards...

This study investigates the relation between human capital depreciation during family-related career interruptions and occupational choice of women in the (West) German labour market. In contrast to other studies that do not explicitly focus on family-related career interruptions, we find that...

Despite abundant microeconomic level evidence, the role of human capital in economic development has not been well documented at the macroeconomic level. Up to now, many empirical macro studies lack a consistent theoretical foundation. In addition, the wide range of published results seems to...

A review of the measures of the stock of human capital used in empirical growth research reveals that human capital is mostly poorly proxied. The simple use of the most common proxy, average years of schooling of the working-age population, misspecifies the relationship between education and the...

We present empirical evidence suggesting that technological progress in the digital age will be biased not only with respect to skills acquired through education but also with respect to noncognitive skills (personality). We measure the direction of technological change by estimated future...

This paper substantiates the debate following Richard Florida’s suggestion to measure regional human capital by creative occupations rather than education. Consistent with Florida’s notion of creativity, it suggests a microfoundation that relates creativity to workers’ cognitive and...