Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35967 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 4576
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which Latin American countries consistently perform at the bottom. In growth models estimated across world regions, these low levels of cognitive skills can account for the poor growth performance of Latin America. Given the limitations of worldwide tests in discriminating performance at low levels, we also introduce measures from two regional tests designed to measure performance for all Latin American countries with internationally comparable income data. Our growth analysis using these data confirms the significant effects of cognitive skills on intra-regional variations. Splicing the new regional tests into the worldwide tests, we also confirm this effect in extended worldwide regressions, although it appears somewhat smaller in the regional Latin American data than in the worldwide data.
Subjects: 
Human capital
economic growth
cognitive skills
Latin America
JEL: 
H4
I2
O4
N16
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
235.87 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.