Data and Code for Jedwab et al: Human Capital Accumulation at Work: Estimates for the World and Implications for Development

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Remi Jedwab, George Washington University; Paul Romer, New York University ; Asif Islam, The World Bank; Roberto Samaniego, George Washington University

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Replication Files Jedwab et al AEJM			07/29/2022 08:53:AM

Project Citation:

Jedwab, Remi, Romer, Paul, Islam, Asif , and Samaniego, Roberto . Data and Code for Jedwab et al: Human Capital Accumulation at Work: Estimates for the World and Implications for Development. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2023. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-06-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/E176481V1

Project Description

Summary: 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.

Funding Sources: The World Bank (Office of the Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist and Social Urban Rural and Resilience Global Practice) ; Cities Program of the International Growth Center (Grant number 89408) ; George Washington University (GWU Institute for International Economic Policy and the GWU Center for International Business Education and Research)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Returns to experience; Returns to education; Human capital; Development Accounting; Economic development; Labor markets

JEL Classification:
      E24 Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
      J11 Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
      J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
      O11 Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
      O12 Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
      O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
      O47 Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

Geographic Coverage: Global

Time Period(s): 1990 – 2016

Universe: Global, working-age adults (18-67 year-old)

Data Type(s): aggregate data

Methodology

Sampling: 24 million individuals in 1,084 household surveys and census samples across 145 countries.

Data Source: As explained in the main README file, the underlying files are the raw files of the International Income Distribution Database (I2D2) of the World Bank, a harmonized database of 1,500 household surveys and census samples from more than 150 countries in the recent period. We describe how the proprietary files can be obtained.

Unit(s) of Observation: We 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.

Geographic Unit: While the underlying data is at the individual level (since these are household surveys and census samples), we provide the aggregate data at the country level.

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V1 [2023-06-23]

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