Educação e desenvolvimento regional: evidências para a Região Norte

Abstract

When analyzing the studies from the second half of the twentieth century about the variables impacting on economic growth and development, there is the significant importance given to human capital as a variable which fosters these processes. The objective of this dissertation is to scale the impact of human capital in economic growth of states in the North, in the period 1999 - 2004, through regression models with panel data. Two equations were estimated in this study to verify the correlation between economic growth and education. The first presents as dependent variable the natural logarithm of the Gross State Domestic Product at constant prices of 2000 (lnPIB), regressed against the three explanatory variables, the average years of schooling of persons 25 years or more (MAE), the squared average years of schooling (MAE2) and the natural logarithm of population (lnPO). The second differs only in relation to the explanatory variable, which became the State per capita GDP at constant prices of 2000 (lnPIBpc). In both models, because of the high value of the coefficient of determination, it was noted the strong impact of the changes in explanatory variables on variations in the dependent variable, indicating that among the myriad of variables impacting economic growth, the variables tested by the model are extremely relevant. Another important aspect concerns the methodology used, panel data, which was likely to ratify the existence of heterogeneity among the states in the North. This demonstrates that even within the same region, the socio-political and economic dynamics were mixed and submitted the states to different stages of development. However, due to the prominence given to investment in education, the main proxy for human capital, as one of the main factors impacting on growth and economic development, including in the North, it is mister implementation of educational policies more effective, order to make them an instrument to boost economic growth and development of these states, as well as help mitigate their discrepancies.