Human Capital, Age Structure and Economic Growth: Evidence from a New Dataset

This paper discusses a new dataset on educational attainment levels by age and sex for 120 countries in the period 1970-2000 which has been reconstructed using demographic multistate back-projection methods. Using this unique dataset, we show that the differences in the education level of the younger age groups explain the differences in income per capita across countries significantly better than aggregate measures such as the education level of the entire adult population. We also present evidence that in developed countries, the education of the younger adults contributes significantly to the adoption of technology

Credit where credit is due: an approach to education returns based on Shapley values

We propose the use of methods based on the Shapley value to assess the fact that private returns to lower levels of educational attainment should be credited with part of the returns from higher attainment levels, since achieving primary education is a necessary condition to enter secondary and tertiary educational levels. We apply the proposed adjustment to a global dataset of private returns to different educational attainment levels and find that the corrected returns to education imply a large shift of returns from tertiary to primary schooling in countries at all income levels

Human Capital, Age Structure and Growth Fluctuation

This paper assesses empirically the relationship between GDP per capita growth fluctuations and the age structure and intensity of human capital across developed and developing countries. We estimate a spatial vector autoregressive model of income dynamics where the economic distance between countries is defined on their similarity in measures of human capital and its distribution across age groups. These distances are computed using a newly developed human capital data set. Spatial effects on growth volatility and complemetarity in national growth processes are explored with respect to the proposed distance metrics. Our results imply that significant growth interdependence based on human capital distances exists among countries, with highly non-linear effects

The Role of Age-Structured Data for Economic Growth Forecasts

This paper utilizes for the first time age-structured human capital data for economic growth forecasting. We concentrate on pooled cross-country data from 58 countries over six five-year periods between 1970 and 2000. We consider specifications chosen by model selection criteria, Bayesian model averaging methodologies based on in-sample and out-of-sample goodness of fit, and on adaptive regression by mixing. The results indicate that forecast averaging and exploiting the demographic dimension of education data improve economic growth forecasts significantly

Exchange rate forecasting and the performance of currency portfolios

We examine the potential gains of using exchange rate forecast models and forecast combination methods in the management of currency portfolios for three exchange rates: the euro versus the US dollar, the British pound, and the Japanese yen. We use a battery of econometric specifications to evaluate whether optimal currency portfolios implied by trading strategies based on exchange rate forecasts outperform single currencies and the equally weighted portfolio. We assess the differences in profitability of optimal currency portfolios for different types of investor preferences, two trading strategies, mean squared error-based composite forecasts, and different forecast horizons. Our results indicate that there are clear benefits of integrating exchange rate forecasts from state-of-the-art econometric models in currency portfolios. These benefits vary across investor preferences and prediction horizons but are rather similar across trading strategies

Exchange rate forecasting and the performance of currency portfolios. IHS Economics Series 326

We examine the potential gains of using exchange rate forecast models and forecast combination methods in the management of currency portfolios for three exchange rates, the euro (EUR) versus the US dollar (USD), the British pound (GBP) and the Japanese yen (JPY). We use a battery of econometric specifications to evaluate whether optimal currency portfolios implied by trading strategies based on exchange rate forecasts outperform single-currency and the equally weighted portfolio. We assess the differences in profitability of optimal currency portfolios for different types of investor preferences, different trading strategies, different composite forecasts and different forecast horizons. Our results indicate that the benefits of integrating exchange rate forecasts from state-of-the-art econometric models in currency portfolios are sensitive to the trading strategy under consideration and vary strongly across prediction horizons

Exchange rate forecasting and the performance of currency portfolios

We examine the potential gains of using exchange rate forecast models and forecast combination methods in the management of currency portfolios for three exchange rates: the euro versus the US dollar, the British pound, and the Japanese yen. We use a battery of econometric specifications to evaluate whether optimal currency portfolios implied by trading strategies based on exchange rate forecasts outperform single currencies and the equally weighted portfolio. We assess the differences in profitability of optimal currency portfolios for different types of investor preferences, two trading strategies, mean squared error‐based composite forecasts, and different forecast horizons. Our results indicate that there are clear benefits of integrating exchange rate forecasts from state‐of‐the‐art econometric models in currency portfolios. These benefits vary across investor preferences and prediction horizons but are rather similar across trading strategies

Uncertainty and business cycle synchronization in Europe

We assess empirically the role that uncertainty plays as a determinant of business cycle synchronization dynamics in the European Monetary Union. Using a time-varying measure of business cycle synchronization and Bayesian model averaging methods, we find that increase in uncertainty tends to robustly predict desynchronization, in particular for countries whose business cycles are not in line with those of the rest of the monetary union

Income projections for climate change research: A framework based on human capital dynamics

The quantitative assessment of the global effects of climate change requires the construction of income projections spanning large time horizons. Exploiting the robust link between educational attainment, age structure dynamics and economic growth we use population projections by age, sex and educational attainment to obtain income per capita path to the year 2100 for 144 countries. Such a framework offers a powerful, consistent methodology which can be used to study the future environmental challenges and to address potential policy reactions

Age Structure, Education and Economic Growth

The effect of changes in age structure on economic growth has been widely studied in the demography and population economics literature. The beneficial effect of changes in age structure after a decrease in fertility has become known as the demographic dividend. In this paper we reassess the empirical evidence on the associations among economic growth, changes in age structure, labor force participation and educational attainment. Using a global panel of countries, we find that once the effect of human capital dynamics is controlled for there is no evidence that changes in age structure affect labor productivity. Our results imply that improvements in educational attainment are the key to explaining productivity and income growth and that a substantial portion of the demographic dividend is an education dividend