An alternative interpretation of 'average years of education' in growth regressions

摘要

The majority of the empirical literature uses average years of education as a proxy of the human capital stock. Based on Lucas (1988) we argue that the level of average years of education can also be seen as a proxy for the growth rate of the per capita human capital stock. This has fundamental impact on the interpretation of the coefficient and may explain some of the contradictory empirical results.