The accumulation of human capital: Theoretical model and evaluation for the case of Tunisia

Empirical studies using human capital are sensitive to the measures associated to this capital and sometimes lead to diverging results. The uses of the average number of years of schooling as a proxy for human capital or the ignorance of the quality of education are the major causes. In this sense, we propose a theoretical model of skill accumulation that simultaneously integrates the quantitative and qualitative aspects of education and takes into account decreasing return to schooling. This model is used to estimate a Macro-Mincer structured model that also integrates the professional experience. As an application, we took the case of the Tunisian economy over the period 1976-2010. The empirical results obtained show that the neglect of the quality dimension leads to a non-statistically significant positive effect of the average number of years of schooling and that the associated social rate of return is overestimated. On the other hand, estimating a model that integrates the two aspects of education, quality and quantity, shows that their effects are statistically significant.