Jedwab, RemiRomer, PaulIslam, AsifSamaniego, Roberto2021-09-302021-09-302021-09https://hdl.handle.net/10986/36315In this paper, the authors: (i) study wage-experience profiles and obtain measures of returns to potential work experience using data from about 24 million individuals in 1,084 household surveys and census samples across 145 countries; (ii) show that returns to work experience are strongly correlated with economic development—workers in developed countries appear to accumulate twice more human capital at work than workers in developing countries; (iii) use a simple accounting framework to find that the contribution of work experience to human capital accumulation and economic development might be as important as the contribution of education itself; and (iv) employ panel regressions to investigate how changes in the returns over time correlate with several factors such as economic recessions, transitions, and human capital stocks.CC BY 3.0 IGORETURNS TO EDUCATIONRETURNS TO EXPERIENCEHUMAN CAPITALECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTLABOR MARKETDEVELOPMENT ACCOUNTINGWorking PaperWorld Bank10.1596/1813-9450-9786