Abstract

The role of human capital in facilitating macroeconomic development is at the center of both academic and policy debates. Through the lens of a simple aggregate production function, human capital might increase output per capita by directly entering in the production process, incentivizing the accumulation of complementary inputs, and facilitating the adoption of new technologies. This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of three approaches that have been used to evaluate the empirical importance of these channels: cross-country regressions, development accounting, and quantitative models. The key findings in the literature are reviewed and some of them are replicated using updated data. The bulk of the evidence suggests that human capital is an important determinant of cross-country income gaps, especially when its measurement is broadened to go beyond simple proxies of educational attainment. The paper concludes by highlighting policy implications and promising avenues for future work.

中文翻译：

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人力资本与宏观经济发展：证据综述

摘要

人力资本在促进宏观经济发展中的作用是学术和政策辩论的中心。通过简单的集合生产函数的视角，人力资本可以通过直接进入生产过程，鼓励补充投入物的积累以及促进采用新技术来增加人均产出。本文讨论了用于评估这些渠道的经验重要性的三种方法的优缺点：跨国回归，发展核算和定量模型。对文献中的关键发现进行了回顾，其中一些使用更新的数据进行了复制。大量证据表明，人力资本是跨国公司收入差距的重要决定因素，特别是当它的度量范围扩展到超越简单的受教育程度代理时。最后，本文着重强调政策含义和未来工作的有希望的途径。