New economic geography meets Comecon

We analyse the internal spatial wage and employment structures of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, using regional data for 1996–2000. A new economic geography model predicts wage gradients and specialization patterns that are smoothly related to the regions’ relative market access. As an alternative, we formulate a ‘Comecon hypothesis’, according to which wages and sectoral location are not systematically related to market access except for discrete concentrations in capital regions. Estimations support both the NEG (new economic geography) prediction and the Comecon hypothesis. However, when we compare internal wage and employment gradients of the five new member states with those of Western European countries, we find that the former are marked by significantly stronger discrete concentrations of wages and service employment in their capital regions, confirming the ongoing relevance of the Comecon hypothesis.     

Human capital effects on labour productivity in EU regions

Recent years have seen a wealth of articles on spatial effects in empirical growth specifications. Endogenous growth models, together with the arguments of the new economic geography, have led to spatial dependence being identified with the existence of externalities which cross regional borders. This article continues in this line of research and offers new empirical evidence on the contribution of human capital and agglomeration economies to the differences in productivity in European Union regions. The article uses the spatial Durbin model with different weight matrices to explain the relation between human capital variables and labour productivity, with the advantage that it allows the effects of spatial externalities associated to human capital and agglomeration economies to be quantified.     

A Spatial-Temporal Model of Human Capital Accumulation

We develop an overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation and analyze its spatial and temporal properties. The interplay between local spillovers of human capital and global market participation partitions the society into socio-economic classes. We focus upon stationary equilibria and show that a large class of them are locally stable. Stationary equilibria can be homogeneous (where the human capital distribution is degenerate) or stratified (with a distinct spatial pattern of human capital distribution). We provide several examples and specify conditions under which equilibria are sensitive to the spatial structure of the society. We illustrate our results by numerical simulations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D90, I21, J24, O15.     

产业结构服务化对人力资本集聚的空间溢出效应——以对北京、上海、广东的SpVAR分析为例

在新经济地理学经典分析框架下建立理论模型,通过数理经济分析方法,讨论发达地区产业结构服务化对周边地区人力资本集聚产生的影响。采用空间向量自回归（SpVAR）模型,结合各地区就业人员平均工资数据验证理论假说,发现北京产业结构服务化对天津、上海对江苏和浙江、广东对福建的人力资本集聚影响,主要表现为负向的空间溢出效应,即虹吸效应,地区间收入水平接近;北京产业结构服务化对河北、内蒙古、山西、河南、辽宁,上海对除江苏、浙江以外的长江经济带7省1市,广东对江西、贵州、湖南的人力资本集聚作用,主要表现为正向的空间溢出效应,即示范效应,地区间收入水平存在差距。根据数理经济分析与实证分析结果,提出以示范效应带动周边地区人力资本集聚,改善虹吸效应对周边地区人力资本集聚的不利影响,发挥政府、企业、行业组织等多方主体在人力资本建设中的作用等意见建议,以期实现人力资本的合理集聚,在产业结构服务化的过程中有效提升人力资本。     

Gender equality and economic growth in Brazil: A long-run analysis

This paper studies the long-run impact of policies aimed at fostering gender equality on economic growth in Brazil. The first part provides a brief review of gender issues in the country. The second part presents a gender-based, three-period OLG model that accounts for women’s time allocation between market work, child rearing, human capital accumulation, and home production. Bargaining between spouses depends on relative human capital stocks, and thus indirectly on access to infrastructure. The model is calibrated and various experiments are conducted, including investment in infrastructure, a reduction in gender bias in the market place, and a composite pro-growth, pro-gender reform program. The analysis showed that fostering gender equality, which may partly depend on the externalities that infrastructure creates in terms of women’s time allocation and bargaining power, may have a substantial impact on long-run growth in Brazil.     

人力资本对产业结构优化升级的影响——基于空间面板数据模型的研究

产业结构优化升级主要包含产业结构合理化与产业结构高级化两个方面. 本文基于2002—2013年间的中国30个省域的数据, 采用空间面板数据模型, 经验分析了人力资本对于产业结构合理化与产业结构高级化的影响作用. 分析得出: 当前中国的人力资本积累水平对于产业结构合理化与产业结构高级化均呈现出正向促进作用; 人力资本分布结构并不利于产业结构合理化与产业结构高级化; 与此同时, 从人力资本对产业结构合理化与产业结构高级化的空间效应来看, 人力资本积累水平具有正的空间溢出效应.     

Trade and Endogenous Formation of Regions in a Developing Country

The authors present a model of regional catching‐up and development without scale effects. Regional growth is driven by technological imitation which is determined by positive externalities from international trade, the regions’ geography, and regional institutions. For the two regions considered, factor endowments are immobile land and human capital which is perfectly mobile between the two regions. Endogenous formation of regions is analyzed by introducing a non‐symmetric decrease in international transaction costs, reflecting the different geography and institutions in the two regions. Using panel data from 354 South African magisterial districts over the period 1996 to 2000, we find that geography is important in explaining trade patterns. As predicted, regions that are larger in terms of economic size, with good foreign market access and know‐how of foreign markets, competitive transport costs and a good local institutional support framework will be more successful in exporting manufactured goods than other regions.     

Understanding TFP growth in inland regions of China: an empirical study of the effects of three factors

In this paper, we empirically examine the potential effects of international openness, domestic coastal-inland market integration, and human capital accumulation on TFP growth in inland provinces in China. By using a nonlinear technique as our main regression approach as well as an extended GMM method as robustness checks, we show that human capital accumulation plays an important role in promoting TFP growth in the inland provinces. Our results support the argument that the most important contribution of human capital to income growth lies not in its static, direct effect as an accumulable factor in the production function, but in its dynamic role in promoting TFP growth. Our regression results also provide evidence for the positive roles international openness and domestic coastal-inland market integration play in promoting TFP growth in inland provinces in China.     

社会资本与区域产业集聚：理论模型与中国经验

本文将新经济地理学中的资本创造模型（CC模型）和社会资本理论相结合，构建了社会资本与区域产业集聚理论模型，考察了社会资本促进区域产业集聚的微观机制。理论分析表明，社会资本越丰富的地区产业集聚程度越高。在此基础上，笔者运用2004年30个省（市）26个制造业行业的数据进行了经验研究。在控制了区位、经济功能、市场潜力、人力资本、政策等因素和异方差的影响后，社会资本对产业集聚有显著影响，并且在使用工具变量克服变量内生性后，以上结论依然稳健。因而，通过提升中西部地区社会资本，有助于建立中西部地区自我发展能力，缩小区域差距。     

Industrialization versus Education: Optimal Investment Choices and Growth in a Developing Economy

Recent growth theory has focused on the role of human capital as a source of welfare gains in developing economies, rather than traditional sources such as improving resource allocation and physical capital accumulation. This paper examines traditional developing-country labor market problems in a Uzawa–Lucas endogenous growth model. Numerical solutions show that policies which promote human capital accumulation can have significant short-term costs, and lower overall welfare improvements, than policies that give similar productivity improvements in the physical-capital or final-goods sector.     

Economic development, growth of human capital, and the dynamics of the wage structure

In this paper I elucidate the sources of growth of human capital in the course of economic development. On the supply side (Section 1) I include the growth of family income, urbanization, the demographic transition, and the rising cost of time.The supply side alone cannot explain the continuous growth of human capital as it implies a self limiting decline in rates of return below those in alternative investments. Such declines are offset by growing demands for human capital in the labor market. Growth of demand for labor skills is a function of capital accumulation and of technological changes. Evidence on this hypothesis is summarized in Section 2 and on supply responses to growing demand for human capital in Section 3. Changes in the skill and wage structures in the labor market are an important part of the evidence.The reciprocal relation between economic growth and the growth of human capital is likely to be an important key to sustained economic growth. A caveat applies to indirect effects of economic growth on family instability, which may lead to a deterioration of childhood human capital in some sectors of society.     

MARKET TRANSACTION COSTS IN INDUSTRIALIZATION AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION*

Abstract. This paper presents a unified theory of growth involving human capital accumulation, labour specialization, market expansion and falling fertility rates. The model suggests that these processes, often analysed separately, are intimately linked. The accumulation of specialized human capital increases the gains to labour specialization, leading agents to increase their participation in markets and reduce time spent at home. This raises the opportunity cost of child raising, lowering fertility rates. The model suggests a central role for market transaction costs in determining the timing and rate of fertility declines linked to rising income.     

对外贸易开放、人力资本积累与企业技术创新

企业技术创新作为科技创新的核心部分,在促进经济高质量发展中的重要性日益凸显。通过构建一个包含消费部门和生产部门的两部门模型,探究对外贸易开放及其人力资本积累效应对企业技术创新的影响机制,随后基于2011-2017年中国31个省级区域的面板数据实证检验对外贸易开放、人力资本积累及二者的交互作用对企业技术创新的影响。结果显示:从整体层面来看,对外贸易开放不仅对企业技术创新产生直接影响,还会通过人力资本积累效应对企业技术创新产生间接影响;从区域异质性角度来看,贸易开放对企业技术创新产生的直接影响和间接影响存在着空间上的非均衡特征,表现为对发达的东部地区的企业影响更为明显,而对欠发达的西部和中部地区的企业影响相对较弱;从对外贸易方式来看,全样本分析表明出口贸易方式的人力资本积累效应对企业技术创新影响作用较强,而进口贸易方式的作用相对较弱。因此,应当注重不同贸易发展方式的人力资本积累效应差异及其对企业技术创新产生的影响,增强我国通过企业技术创新促进经济高质量发展的实效。     

Long-term impact of trade liberalization on human capital formation

While a growing line of research has assessed the effect of trade liberalization on human capital formation, most of these studies focus on its short-term effect on individual’s school attendance. Much less is known about its long-run effect, as well as the impact on other aspects of human capital formation such as labor market and noncognitive outcomes. This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization on individuals’ long-term human capital accumulation, including school attendance, cognitive abilities, labor market performance, and noncognitive outcomes. By constructing prefecture-year-level tariff barriers, our identification strategy exploits variations in different cohorts’ exposure to a trade shock at age 16 for individuals within the same prefecture. Empirical results suggest that trade liberalization leads to decreased completed years of schooling, cognitive abilities, wage, and noncognitive outcomes. We provide suggestive evidence that this observed pattern is explained by the expansion of job opportunities in relatively low-skilled and labor-intensive sectors.     

Endogenous capital market imperfections, human capital, and intergenerational mobility

In this paper, capital market imperfections are endogenized considering an adverse selection problem between banks and borrowers. We develop a growth model with linear OLG wealth dynamics, where agents are heterogeneous in terms of observable wealth and ability, which is private information. We show that banks react to this informational asymmetry by granting higher loans to talented borrowers. This, in turn, helps poor and talented agents to become educated and catch up with the rich agents. Furthermore, the credit market friction leads to greater human capital accumulation.     

Monetary policy with heterogeneous agents and borrowing constraints

We show that the long-run neutrality of inflation on capital accumulation obtained in complete market models no longer holds when households face binding credit constraints. Borrowing-constrained households are not able to rebalance their financial portfolio when inflation varies, and thus adjust their money holdings differently compared to unconstrained households. This heterogeneity leads to a new precautionary savings motive, which implies that inflation increases capital accumulation. We quantify the importance of this new channel in an incomplete market model where the traditional redistributive effects of inflation are also introduced. We show that this model provides a quantitative rationale for the observed hump-shaped relationship between inflation and capital accumulation.     

The effect of corruption on capital accumulation

This paper examines the effect of corruption in infrastructure development as well as in capital and labor markets, on capital accumulation and output in an overlapping generations model. Corruption affects income redistribution, government expenditures on infrastructure, firms’ incentive to invest, and workers’ incentive to supply labor. An increase in corruption in infrastructure development decreases capital accumulation and output if the decrease in the savings of ordinary workers is sufficiently large. An increase in corruption in the capital market decreases capital accumulation and output. An increase in corruption in labor market decreases capital accumulation and output when labor supply is completely inelastic. Simulation results based on plausible parameter values indicate that an increase in corruption in the labor market will also reduce labor supply, capital accumulation and output.      

Endogenous capital market imperfections,human capital,and intergenerational mobility

In this paper, capital market imperfections are endogenized considering an adverse selection problem between banks and borrowers. We develop a growth model with linear OLG wealth dynamics, where agents are heterogeneous in terms of observable wealth and ability, which is private information. We show that banks react to this informational asymmetry by granting higher loans to talented borrowers. This, in turn, helps poor and talented agents to become educated and catch up with the rich agents. Furthermore, the credit market friction leads to greater human capital accumulation.     

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY WITH TWO REGIONS: CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND ECONOMIC STRUCTURE*

This paper proposes a compact two-region economic model with endogenous capital accumulation. The system produces one industrial commodity and service. Each region consists of one industrial sector and one service sector. The model describes the interaction between capital accumulation, the regional distribution of capital and labour, the division of labour, the capital distribution within each region, land rents, regional service prices and commodity prices over time and space. Accepting some simplifying assumptions, we show a way to integrate economic geography. equilibrium theory and neo-classical growth theory. We analyse how differences in regional resources such as land and amenities and the preference structure of the population may affect the equilibrium structure of economic geography.     

中国城市生产性服务业集聚模式选择的经济增长效应*——基于行业、地区与城市规模异质性的空间杜宾模型分析

本文基于新经济地理学的分析框架,利用2003-2012年中国285个地级及以上城市的统计数据,运用空间杜宾模型实证检验了中国城市生产性服务业模式选择的经济增长效应。结果显示,中国城市生产性服务业的专业化集聚、多样化集聚与经济增长都存在显著的空间相关性。生产性服务业集聚模式选择对经济增长的影响效应受到行业结构、地区差异和城市规模的约束：低端生产性服务业集聚的中小城市选择专业化集聚模式可以促进经济增长,而高端生产性服务业集聚的大城市和特大城市更适合选择多样化集聚模式。生产性服务业的多样化集聚模式在全国层面和区域层面（东部、中部、西部）都能够推动经济增长,而生产性服务业专业化集聚对中部地区的经济增长也能存在显著的正向影响,这得益于生产性服务业专业化集聚对经济增长的空间溢出效应。提升市场潜力和人力资本不仅对本地区经济增长具有显著的正向影响,而且对周边地区经济增长也存在明显的促进作用和空间溢出效应。