Bücher der Reihe Elements in the Economics of Emerging Markets

The empirical literature on the contributions of human capital investments to economic growth shows mixed results. While evidence from OECD countries demonstrates that human capital accumulation is associated with growth accelerations, the substantial efforts of developing countries to improve access to and quality of education, as a means for skill accumulation, did not translate into higher income per capita. In this Element, we propose a framework, building on the principles of 'growth diagnostics', to enable practitioners to determine whether human capital investments are a priority for a country's growth strategy. We then discuss and exemplify different tests to diagnose human capital in a place, drawing on the Harvard Growth Lab's experience in different development context, and discuss various policy options to address skill shortages.

Emerging countries are increasingly concerned with improving their competitiveness and productivity. This Element develops a robust econometric methodology, based on controlling for usual unobservable effects at the firm or plant level.

This Element goes far beyond economic theory. It will also be of interest to representatives of the environmental sciences due to its focus on the "e;green"e; economy and sustainable development. It will also be interesting to the representatives of the social sciences, as it takes into account the peculiarities of emerging market economies. Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic makes this Element interesting from a health economics perspective.