Measurement of human capital input across countries: a method based on the laborer's income

摘要

I propose the aggregate output divided by the wage rate of an industrial laborer in a country as a measure of the aggregate human capital input for that country. I use this method to compare the human capital inputs for 45 countries of diverse outputlevels. I find that human capital input differs between the lowest-income and the highest-income countries by a factor of 2.2 or 2.8, depending on the inclusion of outlier countries. This is significant but small relative to the results from the methodbased on years of schooling.