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Schooling, Cognitive Skills, and the Latin American Growth Puzzle

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  • Eric A. Hanushek
  • Ludger Woessmann
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.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2009. "Schooling, Cognitive Skills, and the Latin American Growth Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 15066, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15066
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Prakhov, Ilya, 2012. "The unified state examination and the determinants of academic achievement: Does investment in pre-entry coaching matter?," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 27(3), pages 86-108.
    2. Hanushek, Eric A. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2012. "Schooling, educational achievement, and the Latin American growth puzzle," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 497-512.
    3. Marina Bassi & Matías Busso & Sergio Urzúa & Jaime Vargas, 2012. "Disconnected: Skills, Education, and Employment in Latin America," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 79504, February.
    4. Busso, Matías & Bassi, Marina & Urzúa, Sergio & Vargas, Jaime, 2012. "Disconnected: Skills, Education, and Employment in Latin America," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 427, November.
    5. Metzler, Johannes & Woessmann, Ludger, 2012. "The impact of teacher subject knowledge on student achievement: Evidence from within-teacher within-student variation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 486-496.
    6. Matthew Calver, 2015. "Closing the Aboriginal Education Gap in Canada: Assessing Progress and Estimating the Economic Benefits," CSLS Research Reports 2015-03, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    7. Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Darío Maldonado & Catherine Rodríguez, 2012. "Calidad de la Educación Básica y Media en Colombia: Diagnóstico y Propuestas," Documentos CEDE 10321, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    8. Bagatella-Flores, N. & Rodríguez-Achach, M. & Coronel-Brizio, H.F. & Hernández-Montoya, A.R., 2015. "Wealth distribution of simple exchange models coupled with extremal dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 417(C), pages 168-175.
    9. Juan F. Castro & Gustavo Yamada & Omar Arias, 2011. "Higher education decisions in Peru : on the role of financial constraints, skills, and family background," Working Papers 11-14, Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico.
    10. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 2013. "Human development in Africa: A long-run perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-204.
    11. N. Bagatella-Flores & M. Rodriguez-Achach & H. F. Coronel-Brizio & A. R. Hernandez-Montoya, 2014. "Wealth distribution of simple exchange models coupled with extremal dynamics," Papers 1407.7153, arXiv.org.
    12. Luis Rene Caceres, 2019. "Determinants of trust in government in Latin America," Remef - Revista Mexicana de Economía y Finanzas Nueva Época REMEF (The Mexican Journal of Economics and Finance), Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas, IMEF, vol. 14(3), pages 329-351, Julio - S.
    13. Peter H. Lindert, 2009. "Revealing Failures in the History of School Finance," NBER Working Papers 15491, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Neave O'Clery & Juan Chaparro & Andres Gomez-Lievano & Eduardo Lora, 2024. "Industrial complexity and the evolution of formal employment in developing cities," Papers 2410.06971, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    15. Arlette F. Beltrán & Janice N. Seinfeld, 2011. "Hacia una educación de calidad en el Perú : el heterogéneo impacto de la educación inicial sobre el rendimiento escolar," Working Papers 11-06, Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico.
    16. Joshua Dennis Hall, 2018. "The effects of the quality and quantity of education on income inequality," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(4), pages 2476-2489.
    17. Michael Funke & Marc Gronwald, 2009. "A Convex Hull Approach to Counterfactual Analysis of Trade Openness and Growth," CESifo Working Paper Series 2692, CESifo.
    18. Aftab Ahmed Memon & Zhimin Liu, 2019. "Assessment of Sustainable Development of the Performance of Higher Education Credentials in the Transitive Labor Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-14, May.
    19. Christian Daude, 2012. "Development Accounting: Lessons for Latin America," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 313, OECD Publishing.
    20. Ortega, Daniel E., 2013. "Comment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123305, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    21. Harinder Kohli & Claudio Loser & Anil Sood (ed.), 2013. "Latin America 2040 — Breaking Away from Complacency: An Agenda for Resurgence — Second Edition," Books, Emerging Markets Forum, edition 2, number latam2040v2, July.
    22. Luis Rene Caceres, 2022. "Idle Youth and Macroeconomics in Latin America," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(1), pages 1-98, January.
    23. Angrist, Noam & Patrinos, Harry Anthony & Schlotter, Martin, 2013. "An expansion of a global data set on educational quality : a focus on achievement in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6536, The World Bank.
    24. Andrea Franco & Arlen Guarín & Carlos Medina & Christian M. Posso, 2017. "Políticas de País y Logros de Regiones: el Caso de la Calidad de la Educación Secundaria en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 981, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    25. Jeffrey Puryear & Tamara Ortega Goodspeed, 2011. "How Can Education Help Latin America Develop?," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 3(1), pages 111-134, January.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • N16 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Latin America; Caribbean

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