Estimating Human and Physical Capital Stocks in Data-Scarce Environments: A Methodological Note and Application to Guatemala

This paper presents a methodology to construct time series of human and physical capital, taking into consideration the data-scarce environment of a developing country. A particular focus is placed on the construction of the human capital stock, which is defined by average years of schooling. For the case of Guatemala, a country which is deficient in easily accessible data even within the Latin American context, the paper shows how reliable time series can be obtained for the period 1950-2002. As such, the results of this paper may be useful for data-generating exercises in developing countries with similar constraints. Moreover, the estimates presented here provide a valuable starting point for future regression or growth accounting analyses.