 The deeper roots of human capital formation and economic development in Southeast Asia, 1900–2000Alexandra M. de Pleijt and Ewout Frankema Journal of Development Economics, 2025, vol. 176, issue C Abstract: Since 1970, Southeast Asia’s per capita GDP grew seven-fold and headcount poverty rates declined from ca. 70 to 5%. This paper explores the 20th century schooling revolution as one of the deeper roots of this major leap in human prosperity. Using micro-data on the educational attainment and migration status of ca. 123 million individuals, subdivided across 277 provinces in eight Southeast Asian countries, we establish a strong and significant relationship between early educational attainment and sub-national economic development at the start of the 21st century. Using a wide range of historical and geographic controls, we find that higher education shares are more strongly associated with regional development outcomes than mass education. We also find a strong and robust contribution of inter-regional and international migration to human capital accumulation and long-term development. Keywords: Human capital; Southeast Asia; Economic development; Economic history; Modern economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:176:y:2025:i:c:s0304387825000574 DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103506 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Development Economics is currently edited by M. R. Rosenzweig More articles in Journal of Development Economics from Elsevier |
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