<p>This paper studies the heterogeneous effects of cognitive skills on the growth of GDP per capita of the 33 Colombian departments between 2000 and 2021. Given the possible endogeneity of cognitive abilities, estimation methods are used with instrumental variables for the different specifications of the model. The results suggest that cognitive skills have a notable positive effect on the growth of departmental GDP per capita, and this effect was greater in the first half of the period analyzed than in the second; Higher proportion of scores highlighted on the test has positive effects on growth rate while higher proportion of scores below the average affects it negatively.</p>