V. Nehru et al., A NEW DATABASE ON HUMAN-CAPITAL STOCK IN DEVELOPING AND INDUSTRIAL-COUNTRIES - SOURCES, METHODOLOGY, AND RESULTS, Journal of development economics, 46(2), 1995, pp. 379-401
The paper describes the techniques and data adopted for the constructi
on of a new series of estimates of the stock of education in 85 countr
ies over 28 years (1960-87). The series are built from enrollment data
using the perpetual inventory method, adjusted for mortality. Estimat
es are corrected for grade repetition among school-goers and country-s
pecific drop-out rates for primary and secondary students. Enrollment
data series used start as far back as 1930 for most countries, and eve
n earlier for others. This reduces the need for backward extrapolation
of enrollements to provide the initial estimates of the investment in
ventory.