Search IMF Staff Papers


Advanced Search
Journal Description

Editorial Committee

How to Subscribe

Forthcoming Articles

Staff Papers Archive

Copyright Information

Research at the IMF

Free Email Notification

Receive emails when we post new items of interest to you.

Subscribe or Modify your profile





IMF Staff Papers Logo    Last updated: August 2004
Volume 51, Number 2
 
Higher or Basic Education? The Composition of Human Capital and Economic Development
Rodney Ramcharan

Full Text of this Article (PDF 292K)

No country has achieved sustained economic development without investment in education. But do all types of human capital affect growth identically? And which types of schooling-secondary or tertiary-should public policy promote? This paper develops an analytical framework to address these questions. It shows how the composition of human capital stock determines a country's development. Hence, promoting the "wrong" type of schooling can have little effect on development. In addition, the paper helps in understanding why empirical studies have failed to find a significant relationship between schooling and growth. [JEL O11, O41, I20]