Schooling, Cognitive Skills, and the Latin American Growth Puzzle
39 Pages Posted: 23 Jun 2009
There are 3 versions of this paper
Schooling, Cognitive Skills, and the Latin American Growth Puzzle
Schooling, Cognitive Skills, and the Latin American Growth Puzzle
Schooling, Cognitive Skills, and the Latin American Growth Puzzle
Date Written: June 2009
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.
JEL Classification: O4, I2
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Register to save articles to
your library
Recommended Papers
-
The Effects of Education Quality on Income Growth and Mortality Decline
By Eliot Jamison, Dean T. Jamison, ...
-
The Role of School Improvement in Economic Development
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
-
The Role of School Improvement in Economic Development
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
-
Do Better Schools Lead to More Growth? Cognitive Skills, Economic Outcomes, and Causation
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
-
Do Better Schools Lead to More Growth? Cognitive Skills, Economic Outcomes, and Causation
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
-
Do Better Schools Lead to More Growth? Cognitive Skills, Economic Outcomes, and Causation
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
-
The Role of Education Quality for Economic Growth
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
-
The Economics of International Differences in Educational Achievement
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
-
The Economics of International Differences in Educational Achievement
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
-
The Economics of International Differences in Educational Achievement
By Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
