Human Capital Composition and Economic Growth at the Regional Level

MANCA F. Human capital composition and economic growth at the regional level, Regional Studies. This paper analyses the impact of human capital composition on regional catch-up for Spain over the period 1960-1997. Empirical evidence shows that human capital has a non-linear impact on convergence at both NUTS-2 and NUTS-3 geographical disaggregation levels. Tertiary education drives regional catch-up, while the accumulation of non-technical education slows down this convergence. When one controls for the development stage of the regions, strong complementarities seem to arise between different types of skills. When closer to the frontier, the complementarities between tertiary education and secondary/vocational training drive the convergence process, while the impact of intermediate education is weak for regions at lower development stages.