Paper #902

Title:

Human capital, the structure of production and growth

Authors:

Antonio Ciccone and Elias Papaioannou

Date:

November 2005

Abstract:

Do high levels of human capital foster economic growth by facilitating technology adoption? If so, countries with more human capital should have adopted more rapidly the skilled-labor augmenting technologies becoming available since the 1970’s. High human capital levels should therefore have translated into fast growth in more compared to less human-capital-intensive industries in the 1980’s. Theories of international specialization point to human capital accumulation as another important determinant of growth in human-capital-intensive industries. Using data for a large sample of countries, we find significant positive effects of human capital levels and human capital accumulation on output and employment growth in human-capital-intensive industries.

Keywords:

Human Capital, Growth, Structure of Production

JEL codes:

E13, O11, F11

Area of Research:

Macroeconomics and International Economics

Published in:

Review of Economics and Statistics, 91 (1), 66-82, 2009

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