Optimal public education policy in a two sector model

Proposing a simple two sector model with occupational choice, this paper analyzes the relationship between optimal public education policy and industrial structure. Workers are employed based on their skills and education policy influences the distribution of human capital. Thus, the industrial structure determines whether an elite education policy or an egalitarian education policy is desirable. In particular, this paper indicates how the productivities of each sector and market sizes affect optimal public education policy.     

How much does schooling disutility matter?

Studies on structural education choice models are often inconsistent in choosing whether and how to include a disutility of education, especially in an environment with risk and wealth inequality. We show that adding a disutility term to the education decision, a human capital investment option, is equivalent to assuming a relationship between wealth, risk, and education. Utility gain from education is increasing in the riskiness of future consumption. A riskier environment further propels an agent to choose the human capital investment option that maximizes future income. If the degree of risk increases heterogeneously across multiple human capital investment options, risk aversion and the precautionary savings motive can compound or negate each other depending on which option has a greater increase in risk.     

Credit constraint and human capital investment: an empirical analysis using Brazilian household budget survey

This article is a first step towards understanding the relationship between credit market imperfections and inequality of opportunity in skill formation. The main goal is to investigate the effects of the credit constraint on the optimal human capital decision, in terms of degree of schooling, taking into account the household preferences for education. Our starting point is a theoretical model of human capital investment decision with credit constraint. Following a previous model in the literature, we propose a reduced-form approach that estimates the relation between education decision and initial wealth in Brazil. Our empirical analysis is conducted using data from a Brazilian Household Budget Survey (Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares), for years 2002–2003 and 2008–2009. Our results point out that education decision is in fact credit constrained. The empirical results show a strong and highly significant effect of wealth on educational level of children, teenagers and adults, even controlling by education expenditures. But we find no evidence of credit constraint on high level education decision, like undergraduate and graduate levels.     

人力资本、经济增长与空间溢出效应—基于中国省域面板数据的实证分析

以教育年限和成本法分别核算出我国1982～2011年间人力资本水平,运用ESDA描绘了31个省区"经济增长—人力资本"的空间分布特征,并进行了全域及局域空间相关性检验,随后构建了空间Lucas模型,通过面板回归分析了人力资本对经济增长的空间外溢作用,尔后核算出各省区人力资本空间集聚对经济增长的贡献率。我国省域间人力资本与经济增长在地理空间上呈现出显著的集聚态势,且存在强烈的全域空间相关性,但局域间存在差异性,同时从总体上看,相邻省区人力资本对本省经济增长具有显著的正向溢出效应。     

Optimal education and pensions in an endogenous growth model

In OLG economies with life-cycle saving and exogenous growth, competitive equilibria in general fail to achieve optimality because individuals accumulate amounts of physical capital that differ from the one that maximizes welfare along a balanced growth path (the Golden Rule). With human capital, a second potential source of departure from optimality arises, related to education decisions. We propose to recover the Golden Rule of physical and also human capital accumulation. We characterize the optimal policy to decentralize the Golden Rule balanced growth path when there are no constraints for individuals to finance their education investments, and show that it involves education taxes. Also, when the government subsidizes the repayment of education loans, optimal pensions are positive.     

The visible and the hidden behind migrants’ human capital

The paper explores differences in human capital between the Israel-born and immigrants within the Jorgenson and Fraumeni model. Using a unique ‘imputed education’ method, the study answers whether the immigrants’ level of education, in fact, reflects their human capital. The results show that immigrants during their first years do not work in an occupation that fits their education; this holds their estimated human capital below that of the Israel-born. Over the years, the gap between immigrants and non-immigrants in per-capita human capital contracted from 30 percent to 14 percent on average, or, using the imputation method, from 23 percent to 9 percent. In addition, the gaps between the immigrants and nonimmigrants and those between original education and imputed education contract at higher education levels. Some immigrants were able to find an occupation that matched their education and to integrate into the local job market, and the per-capita human capital of immigrants and nonimmigrants converged.     

PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF EDUCATION IN A R&D-BASED GROWTH MODEL

We develop a R&D‐based growth model with endogenous accumulation of human capital. We investigate the idea that education is a good entering in the preferences of individuals. We seek to analyse how the decisions of individuals to invest in human capital can be altered by changes in economic policies and how they can be reflected on the level of growth in the long run. We show that policy changes affect growth through their effect on the decision of individuals to invest in human capital. The effects obtained depend whether individuals enjoy to acquire education or if they consider it as a ‘bad’. In the absence of any policy intervention, the level of growth can be excessive or insufficient compared with the optimum.     

Does human capital or physical capital constrain output in Japanese prefectures?

This paper develops a dynamic–network DEA (data envelopment analysis) model where total output is jointly produced from two sectors: a human capital sector and a physical capital sector. Each prefecture produces a final output and an intermediate product which is used to augment future physical capital. The optimization method allows future production possibilities to be enhanced if some final output in the current period is foregone so that larger amounts of the intermediate product can be produced. The goal is to choose the amounts of final output and intermediate product so as to maximize the size of the production possibility set. The method also allows identification of whether output is constrained by a lack of physical capital, a lack of human capital or a lack of both types of capital. We apply our method to 47 Japanese prefectures during the period 2007–2009. A key finding is that a lack of human capital is constraining potential output.     

Optimal taxation in an endogenous growth model with variable population and public expenditure

In this paper we analyze second-best optimal taxation in an endogenous-growth model driven by public expenditure, in presence of endogenous fertility and labor supply. Normative analysis shows positive taxes on the number of children, which are necessary to correct for congestion in the publicly provided input (such as education and healthcare), negative public debt. Results on capital and labor income taxation depend on whether the public input is optimally provided.     

Polluting Non-Renewable Resources and Growth

In an endogenous growth model with human capital accumulation, we introduce non-renewable resources which cause flow pollution problems. In this set-up the negative external effect of pollution on productivity does not cause any distortions in the economy: The market economy will achieve the optimal extraction and growth rates. Consequently, emission taxes are unnecessary and, when introduced, will have no effect on the economy. The more important is the negative pollution externality, the larger will be the optimal long-run growth rate (which may be either positive or negative). In the case of a positive human capital externality, consumption in the market economy may approach zero in the long run, although positive consumption growth is socially optimal. Growth-enhancing policies do not necessarily cause a larger drain in the resource stock.     

Family Policies: What Does the Standard Endogenous Fertility Model Tell Us?

Very few studies have explored the optimality properties of the “standard model” of fertility where parents must determine their optimal trade‐off between quality and quantity. The present paper works to fill that gap and find three main results. First, when there exist positive externalities in the accumulation of human capital, it is optimal to subsidize education and to tax births. Second, when the Social Welfare Function does not consist of the average utility, the social returns on educational investments can be weaker than the private returns when the optimal population growth rate is negative. In this case, the optimal economic policy consists in subsidizing births and taxing education. Finally, when the health expenditure is introduced as another source of positive externalities, it can be optimal to tax the parental health expenditure to decentralize the first‐best path even if this expenditure is always too low at the laissez‐faire equilibrium.     

Credit in a Random Matching Model with Private Information

We consider a random matching model where agents have complete access to each others' histories. Exchange is motivated by risk sharing, given random unobservable incomes. There is capital accumulation and an endogenous interest rate. The key feature of this environment is that information is mobile across locations, while there are frictions associated with transporting goods. Optimal allocations in the dynamic private information environment resemble real-world credit arrangements in that there are credit balances, credit limits, and installment payments. The steady state has the property that there is a limiting distribution of expected utility entitlements with mobility and a positive fraction of agents who are credit constrained.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: D8, E1.     

研发人力资本配置与技术创新——异质教育层次视角

在经济增长结构性减速和经济向高质量转型发展背景下，探讨研发人力资本有效配置对中国经济结构转型发展具有重要现实意义。基于中国2009-2018年省际面板数据，根据教育层次异质性，将研发人力资本细分为本科及以下、硕士与博士3种类型，运用静态和动态面板回归模型，从创新总量与细分创新类型视角分析不同教育层次研发人力资本作用于技术创新的差异化特征。统计分析和实证研究表明，中国地区不同教育层次研发人力资本配置不平衡，本科及以下研发人力资本占据主导地位，而本科及以下研发人力资本对地区技术创新具有一定抑制效应，硕士研发人力资本对地区技术创新具有显著正向作用，博士研发人力资本对地区技术创新没有呈现显著正面效应，且相比于硕士研发人力资本具有更低的创新产出弹性，在科研创新效率方面没有体现出预期的教育优势。研究结果对中国高层次人力资本在技术创新中的优化配置和经济结构转型发展具有积极的借鉴意义。     

人口老龄化、公共人力资本投资与 经济增长*

本文利用内生化老龄化的世代交叠模型,探讨了老龄化社会中为了促进经济增长可选择的公共人力资本投资的最优相对规模和结构。本文研究表明,公共人力资本投资相对规模（即占GDP比例）和公共健康支出占比（即占公共人力资本投资比例）均与经济增长呈倒U型关系,且最优值通过老龄化对经济增长的作用表现出来。即当老龄化对经济增长有促进（抑制）作用时,政府促进经济增长的政策是提高（降低）人力资本投资相对规模和公共健康支出占比。基于中国省级面板数据的实证研究发现,老龄化不利于经济增长,公共人力资本投资相对规模及公共健康支出占比偏大,均处在倒U型曲线的下降阶段,分别通过挤出对经济增长更具促进作用的私人投资、公共物质资本投资和公共教育支出而不利于经济增长。本文的政策含义是,政府需提高公共教育支出占比,引导和鼓励更有效率的社会私人资本进行人力资本投资,以逐步降低公共人力资本投资的相对规模。当前公共物质资本投资则需继续加强。     

Teach a man to fish? Education vs. optimal taxation

Abstract In models of redistribution, differences in human capital are often the relevant source of heterogeneity among individuals. Presumably, the distribution of human capital can be manipulated through education spending. This paper examines the use of education as a redistributive tool when there is a non‐linear tax system in place. The results show that taxation, whether under full or asymmetric information, substantially reduces the redistributive role of education spending in maximizing social welfare. This points to a conflict between the equalization of utility and human capital outcomes.     

On Welfare Criteria and Optimality in an Endogenous Growth Model

In this paper, we explore the consequences for optimality of a social planner adopting two different welfare criteria. The framework of analysis is an overlapping generations model with physical and human capital. We first show that, when the social welfare function is a discounted sum of individual utilities defined over consumption per unit of natural labor, the precise cardinalization of the individual utility function becomes crucial for both the characterization of the social optimum and the policies that support it. Also, decentralizing the social optimum requires an education subsidy that is definitely positive, but its size depends in a determinant way on the aforementioned cardinalization. In contrast, when the social welfare function is a discounted sum of individual utilities defined over consumption per unit of efficient labor, the precise cardinalization of preferences becomes irrelevant. More strikingly, along the optimal growth path, the education subsidy is negative, i.e., the planner should tax rather than subsidize investments in human capital.     

Redistributive Tax and Growth in a Model with Discrete Occupational Choice

An optimal redistributive tax-subsidy formula is derived for a growth model where income inequality is endogenously driven by an adult's choice of occupation between work and management. Investment in human capital is the engine of growth. The world's stock of exploitable knowledge as well as the economy's average human capital determine the potential rate of return from investment in human capital in an economy. How much available knowledge would be exploited in the economy depends on the proportion of innovators in our model. A redistributive tax reform impacts growth as well as income inequality via its influence over the occupational choice. The optimal redistributive tax rate is path-dependent in the sense that it depends on the initial wealth distribution. The normative implication of the model is that the optimal capital income tax rate could very well be positive if the initial wealth inequality exceeds a threshold. The optimal capital income tax rate depends inversely on the initial wealth inequality.     

Optimal human capital policies under the endogenous choice of educational types

This study examines optimal human capital policies under nonlinear labor and capital income taxes in the presence of consumption value of education in a two‐period setting. We show that when individuals can choose educational types differing by the relative importance of consumption value and production value, education subsidies for low‐type individuals should not equal an efficient level that offsets distortions induced by nonlinear taxes on labor and capital income. Our findings imply that education policy does not restore efficiency, or the Diamond–Mirrlees production efficiency theorem fails. Moreover, capital income taxation is optimal, which means that the Atkinson–Stiglitz theorem breaks down.     

Operating efficiency and output insensitive employment contracts for capital management

Summary This paper considers a problem in which an agent is hired to manage a capital investment and subsequently receives private information regarding the productivity of the capital investment. The capital manager must decide whether to invest capital supplied by the firm (the principal), or to divert these investment funds to perquisite consumption. If the manager decides to invest, the manager must then select the level of operating efficiency (productivity) of the capital investment, this latter choice being unobservable and constrained by the (maximal) productivity of the investment. In this setting we demonstrate that the optimal employment contract, from the perspective of the firm hiring the manager, is the contract whichminimizes the dependence of the manager's compensation on firm output. This contract pays the manager a fixed wage whenever output from the investment exceeds the wage and provides the manager with all of the projects rents whenever output falls below this level. Thus, we provide a setting in which fixed wage contracts are the optimal incentive contract even when agents are risk neutral and contracts can be costlessly written on future output.We would like to thank the participants in the Princeton Economics and Finance Workshop and the Ohio State University Finance Workshop for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The second author gratefully acknowledges the research support of the Georgia State College of Business Administration Research Council.     

Parental actions and sibling inequality

This paper presents a simple model of resource allocation within the family. The model is based on two main assumptions: there are nonconvexities in human capital investments and parents cannot borrow to finance their children's education. The model shows that poor and middle-income parents will often find it optimal to channel human capital investments into a few of their children, thus creating sizable inequalities among siblings. The paper shows that the predictions of the model are consistent with the available evidence for three Latin American countries.