Abstract:

The paper reflects on the potential contribution of the effort to increase the educational level of the population and training opportunities for professional resources in economic growth, taking as reference the theories of human capital and innovation. In both cases the discussion will be based in the main concepts and researchs that are derived from both theories.

The focus will be the case of Mexico and the purpose is to find what has been the contribution to economic growth by the increase of the years of schooling during the period 1991-2010 as part of major reforms in higher education and science and technology.

The central hypothesis is that human capital contribute to economic growth, only to the extent that a system of practices and institutions guide and promote the incorporation of knowledge into the productive efforts of enterprises and other economic sectors.

As part of the analysis it has been designed a model of a national innovation system SNI that reflects the special conditions of the country and also captures the impacts of human resources in economic development. One of the contributions of the application of the model is the distinction between a set of variables resulting in two clusters that we call SNI-scientific and SNI-enterprise.

As a part of the discussion a "cross national" analysis will be presented which provides further evidence on the factor of influence on economic growth performing the interaction between scholling increase effort and a national innovation system evolution.

As part of the analysis the paper include the main features of supply and quality of education and the performance of the labor market during the period. The focus will be the utilization and absorption of knowledge.

Keywords:

Human capital, national innovation system, higher education, labor market, absorption of knowledge.