The Impact of Human Capital on Economic Growth in Ethiopia: Evidence from Time Series Analysis

Abstract

The general objective of the study was to analyze the impact of human capital development on economic growth in Ethiopia over the period 1974/5 -2018/9. The econometric models of Johnesan cointegration, VECM and causality tests were applied to analysis short-run and long-run impact of Human capital on Economic growth. The result of the error correction model shows that the model is adjusting at a relatively stable rate of 74.3% towards the long-run equilibrium. Furthermore, the result shows that human capital proxied of (primary and secondary school enrolments) and active labour force have a positive statistical significant long run and short-run effect on economic growth in Ethiopia. Such findings are consistent with the endogenous growth theories which argue that an improvement in human capital (skilled workers) improves productivity. In addition, results reveal that education expenditure and life expectancy at birth have a positive and statistically significant long-run effect on economic growth. However, the expenditure on health, secondary school enrolment and official development assistance are statically significant and have an unexpected negative impact on long-run economic growth. Furthermore, the short-run causality tests results reveal that public expenditure on education, primary school enrolment, secondary school enrolment and RGDP have unidirectional causal effects. Hence policymakers and/or the government give prioritize to create institutional capacity that increase school enrolment and strengthening the infrastructure or investment of educational and health institutions that produce quality of manpower to increase productivity.