Measuring the Growth of Skills

James J. Heckman, Haihan Tian, Zijian Zhang and Jin Zhou

No 34737, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper discusses a fundamental problem in measuring the growth of knowledge and comparing the skills of people. New skills emerge that are not just more of the previously acquired skills. Psychometric convention forces these skills into arbitrarily constructed scales, which can severely distort measurement. To formally address this problem, we measure skills using a novel measurement scheme, estimate a stochastic learning process and reject the common scale assumption across levels for language and cognitive skills. Furthermore, we estimate dynamic complementarity without imposing arbitrary scales for skills.

JEL-codes: C18 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01
Note: CH DEV ED
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