On Aggregating Human Capital across Heterogeneous Cohorts

National Bank of Poland Working Paper No. 134

36 Pages Posted: 2 Feb 2013

See all articles by Jakub Growiec

Jakub Growiec

National Bank of Poland; Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)

Christian Groth

Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 3, 2012

Abstract

Based on a general framework for computing the aggregate human capital stock under heterogeneity across population cohorts, the paper derives aggregate human capital stocks in the whole population and in the labor force, and relates these variables to average years of schooling and average work experience. Under the scenarios considered here, the “macro-Mincer” (log-linear) relationship between aggregate human capital and average years of schooling is obtained only in cases which are inconsistent with heterogeneity in years of schooling or based on empirically implausible demographic survival laws. Our numerical results indicate that the macro-Mincer equation can be a reasonable approximation of the true relationship only if returns to schooling and work experience are roughly constant across countries.

Keywords: human capital, aggregation, heterogeneity, population cohort, Mincer equation

JEL Classification: J24, O47

Suggested Citation

Growiec, Jakub and Groth, Christian, On Aggregating Human Capital across Heterogeneous Cohorts (December 3, 2012). National Bank of Poland Working Paper No. 134, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2210381 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2210381

Jakub Growiec (Contact Author)

National Bank of Poland ( email )

00-919 Warsaw
Poland

Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)

aleja Niepodleglosci 162
PL-Warsaw, 02-554
Poland

Christian Groth

Department of Economics ( email )

Oester Farimagsgade 5, Building 26
DK-1353 Copenhagen N.
Denmark