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  5. Human Capital Accumulation at Work: Estimates for the World and Implications for Development

Human Capital Accumulation at Work: Estimates for the World and Implications for Development

Abstract

In this paper, we: (i) study wage-experience profiles and obtain measures of returns to potential work experience using data from about 24 million individuals in 1,084 household surveys and census samples across 145 countries; (ii) show that returns to work experience are strongly correlated with economic development—workers in developed countries appear to accumulate twice as much human capital at work than workers in developing countries; (iii) use a simple accounting framework to find that the contribution of work experience to human capital accumulation and economic development might be as important as the contribution of education itself; and (iv) employ panel regressions to investigate how changes in the returns over time correlate with several factors such as economic recessions, transitions, and human capital stocks.

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