Can the 16th and early 17th centuries in Poland‐Lithuania and some other east‐central European countries be characterized as a “Golden Age” in human capital? We trace the development of a specific human capital indicator during this period: numeracy. We draw upon new evidence for Poland...

This article traces inequality and numeracy development in the regions of Chile during the 19th and early 20th century. Inequality, measured with anthropometric methods, was associated with a lower speed of human capital formation. Not all talents received the necessary education to make full...

This study is the first to explore long-run trends of numeracy for the 1820-1949 period in 165 countries, and its contribution to growth. Estimates of the long-run numeracy development of most countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, America, and Europe are presented, using age-heaping...

Brain drain is a core economic policy problem for many developing countries today. Does relative inequality in source and destination countries influence the brain-drain phenomenon? We explore human capital selectivity during the period 1820-1909.We apply age heaping techniques to measure human...

We employ a non-parametrical approach to growth accounting (Data Envelopment Analysis, DEA) to disentangle the proximate sources of labour productivity growth in 41 nations between 1929 and 1950 by decomposing productivity growth into four components: technological change, efficiency catch-up...

We trace the development of human capital in today's Senegal, Gambia, and Western Mali between 1770 and 1900. European trade, slavery and early colonialism were linked to human capital formation, but this connection appears to have been heterogeneous. The contact with the Atlantic slave trade...