Economic Growth in Sweden, 1870-2000. Essay on Human Capital Contribution

In this paper, we analyze the role which human capital played in Swedish economic growth over the late nineteenth-twentieth centuries. It has been shown that Swedish development over the considered period may be divided into three sub-periods, which have particular features when it comes to interrelations between human capital and economic growth. In the first sub-period (1888-1933), the Lucasian growth regime was likely to be dominating, that is, the rate of economic growth was defined by the rate of human capital accumulation. After 1934 economic growth switched to the Romerian mode, that is, the rate of economic growth was defined by already accumulated level of human capital. When it comes to the third sub-period (1971-2000), we could not specify the dominating growth regime based on the methodology suggested in this research. Regression analyses have shown that in general over 1870-2000 human capital had the significant, positive effect on economic growth; however, size and significance of the effect are highly vulnerable to regression specification