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Physical capital, labour, human capital and technical progress are the four principal sources of economic growth of nations. This chapter measures the importance of human capital, as well as physical capital, labour and technical progress, as a source of economic growth. The authors use data from individual Brazilian states in 1970 and 1980 to estimate the real output of each state to physical capital, labour, education and time. A meta-production function approach is employed to study the relationship in Brazil between real outputs and inputs, including human capital, using two cross-sections of data from individual states. The findings suggest that one additional year of average education per person of the labour force increases real output by approximately 20 per cent. There is also evidence of a threshold effect in average education at between three and four years, above that threshold there are increasing social returns to average education. The authors provide comparisons with other studies and discuss the areas of future research.