Measuring the stock of human capital in Cape Verde, 1950‐2012

Abstract The present study focuses on the estimation of the human capital stock for the Cape Verdean economy in the period 1950‐2012. Adapting the methodology proposed by Barro and Lee, based on past schooling values, we found that between 1950 and 2012 the Cape Verdean working-age population showed a gradual improvement in the levels of schooling, rising from 0.7 years of schooling in the 1950s to 5.4 in late 2012. Thus, in each year, the average years of schooling increased only 0.08 years, meaning that, in net terms and on average, only 7.6 per cent of the working-age population was attending some level of formal education. The availability of a time series of number of average schooling years in Cape Verde opens up possibilities for assessing the impact of human capital on the country's economic development.