Accounting for human capital externalities with an application to the Nordic countries

Externalities caused by human capital accumulation have taken up considerable space in theoretical work on economic growth. However, less attention has been paid to this externality in traditional growth accounting exercises. This paper takes up the issue of growth accounting, suggesting a framework for quantifying human-capital externalities and illustrating it empirically using data from the five Nordic countries. Four sources of growth are identified, i.e. capital accumulation, labor force growth, and total factor productivity growth (TFP), where the traditional TFP measure is split into a part explained by human-capital formation and an unexplained part. By doing this I am able to attribute between 12 per cent and 33 per cent of growth in the Nordic countries to human capital investment.     

Human capital externalities Evidence from the transition economy of Russia1

The paper tests for the existence of human capital externalities using a micro‐level approach: the Mincerian wage regression augmented with the average level of education in cities. To solve identification problems arising from the endogeneity of average education, the study exploits a natural experiment provided by the process of economic transition: average education at the end of communism can be seen as exogenous in respect of wages prevailing after the start of transition. Our empirical results based on the RLMS data show that a 1 percentage point increase in the share of city residents with a university degree results in an increase of wages of city residents by about 1 percent.     

人力资本向下兼容性及其对跨国收入水平核算的意义

本文将人力资本的向下兼容性考虑到人力资本总量的度量当中,提出了一种比传统人力资本加总方法更加一般化的方法。利用本文得到的人力资本总量,我们还进行了跨国收入水平核算。与Klenow和Rodriguez Clare( 1 997)、Hall和Jones( 1 999)以及近几年研究的主要结论相反,本文的结论是人力资本和物质资本对于跨国收入差异的贡献与生产率的贡献相比是主要的。本文的贡献主要有两方面,一是提出了一种更加一般化的人力资本加总方法,二是使我们对造成跨国收入巨大差异原因的认识又回到了Mankiw ,RomerandWeil( 1 992 )的著名论断,从而回应了Klenow和Rodriguez Clare( 1 997)、Hall和Jones( 1 999)以及近几年研究对Mankiw ,RomerandWeil ( 1 992 )的批评,有力地支持了“新古典复兴”。     

企业家人力资本外部性及其内在化路径研究

具有创新型生产力形态的企业家人力资本,在社会实践中的运用呈现出较强的正向外部性,这源于企业家人力资本的私人收益率与社会收益率的极大不一致。由于外部性的存在,阻碍了企业家创新精神的发挥及企业家人力资本的生成和供给．故完整界定企业家人力资本产权是克服外部性的有效手段．企业家人力资本的股权化是其外部性内在化的具体路径选择。     

HOW LARGE ARE LEARNING EXTERNALITIES?*

The quantitative features of human capital externalities are not fully understood. Although static externalities are estimated in some studies, learning externalities remain mostly unestimated. By calibrating a growth model, this article provides an estimate of learning externalities. The calibration uses an equilibrium condition that equates private returns on physical capital and human capital. The results suggest that sizable learning externalities exist, even in a conservative setup. The estimated social rate of return on human capital is 9.0%, compared to the private rate of return, 6.6%. Therefore, human capital externalities are an important source of economic growth.     

An application of duality theory: A portfolio composition of the West-German private non-bank sector, 1968–1975

The objective of this paper is to apply the duality approach in the theory of consumer behavior for deriving demand systems to analyse the allocation of assets and liabilities of the private non-bank sector. A commodity approach is chosen where service flows of assets, physical capital and liabilities enter the direct utility function and the corresponding interest rates and price of capital enter the indirect utility function. The approach results in a system of demand and supply functions for optimal stocks consistent with utility maximization. For econometric implementation an overall model in an asset aggregate, capital and a liability aggregate is fitted first. Next, two submodels are constructed for an optimal allocation of the asset aggregate and the liability aggregate to its various components that made up the aggregate. Empirical results for time series data of the German private non-bank sector are presented.     

Estate taxes, consumption externalities, and altruism

We study how the introduction of consumption externalities affects the optimality of the dynamic equilibrium in an economy displaying dynastic altruism. When the bequest motive is inoperative consumption externalities affect the intertemporal margin between young and old consumption and thus modify the intertemporal path of aggregate consumption and capital. The optimal tax policy that solves this intertemporal suboptimality consists of a tax on capital income and a pay-as-you-go social security system. The latter solves the excess of capital accumulation due to the inoperativeness of the bequest motive and the former solves the suboptimal allocation of consumption due to consumption externalities. When the bequest motive is operative consumption externalities only cause an intratemporal misallocation of consumption but do not affect the optimality of the capital stock level. This suboptimal allocation of consumption implies in turn that the path of bequest deviates also from optimality. The optimal tax policy in this case consists of an estate tax and a capital income tax.     

Endogenous Imitation and Technology Absorption in a Model of North–South Trade

Abstract

This paper considers the transfer of technology from the North to the South that occurs through trade in high-technology goods and explicitly models the ‘reverse-engineering’ process that allows the South to assimilate new technologies. A key finding of this study is that the South's rate of growth is dictated by the size of the country's human capital, which determines its absorptive capacity and its ability to assimilate knowledge from the North. We find that while a Southern country that is poor in human capital can only imitate, Southern countries that possess sufficiently large human capital endowments, beyond a certain threshold, signal the onset of innovation. We also find that the North enjoys a higher rate of innovation and growth with trade than without. North's gains are the highest when it trades with a human-capital ‘poor’ South, because imitation increases South's demand for Northern intermediates. But trade with the Southern countries that are human capital rich (and therefore involved in innovation), dampens their demand for Northern imports, adversely affecting North's growth. The model predicts growth convergence between the North and a South that is well passed the threshold for innovation.     

Externalities of investment and endogenous growth: theory and time series evidence

In the paper we present and estimate an endogenous growth model in which sustained per capita growth is the result of positive externalities of investment in physical capital. In contrast to the usual assumption that investment raises physical capital and, as a byproduct, a stock of knowledge one for one, we suppose a different framework. So, we treat physical and human capital as two distinct variables and underline the importance of the stock of knowledge per physical capital as to the growth performance of countries. Estimation of that model for France, Germany and Japan shows that it is compatible with empirical data. For Great Britain the model performs poor and for the USA it does not produce reasonable outcomes at all. One conclusion we draw from our studies is that an endogenous growth model with positive externalities of investment is of empirical relevance. However, the growth process is also determined by country specific factors such that cross-countries studies should be considered with some care.     

SECTOR‐SPECIFIC EXTERNALITIES AND STATUS PREFERENCES IN THE UZAWA‐LUCAS MODEL*

This paper shows that introducing preferences for social status based on human capital holdings modifies the finding of Gómez (2004 ) that sector‐specific externalities associated with human capital in the goods sector do not violate the optimality of the competitive economy in the Uzawa–Lucas model. The effect of an increase in the degree of sector‐specific externalities is qualitatively the same as that of an increase in the strength of the desire for status. Hence, paradoxically, a greater degree of sector‐specific externalities makes human capital accumulation more excessive from the social point of view.     

Effects of North–South trade on wage inequality and on human-capital accumulation

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with technological knowledge directed towards high- versus low-skilled labour, augmented with North–South international trade of intermediate goods and with human-capital accumulation, to analyse how trade affects wage inequality and the inter-country human-capital gap. Trade is a vehicle for inter-country technological-knowledge diffusion and human-capital accumulation interacts with the intra-country direction of technological knowledge arising from trade. In contrast with the market-size effect, stressed in the skill-biased technological change literature, the operation of the price channel following openness to trade predicts, in line with the recent trends in developed and developing countries, an increasing technological-knowledge bias towards high-skilled human capital. This, in turn, decreases inter-country gaps of technological knowledge and human capital and increases intra-country wage inequality. Also in line with recent empirical evidence, inter-country wage convergence is induced by the trade-opening level effect.     

新冠肺炎疫情的经济影响分析：长期视角与短期应对*

本文从需求和供给两侧分析了此次新冠疫情对我国经济的短期和长期影响。在需求侧,基于理论分析和非典疫情对经济的影响特征,经济总需求会随着此次疫情的结束而在短期内快速得到恢复。但此次疫情也会加大总需求和居民收入增速的下行压力。在供给侧,疫情不仅会降低劳动力资源配置效率,加剧劳动力供需结构矛盾,同时也大幅降低了我国的资本投资,在缺乏有效干预措施下,很可能加剧我国资本投资和经济总体增速的短期下滑趋势。而基于理论分析,相应供给冲击也将对我国长期产出带来增长压力。基于疫情对我国经济需求侧和供给侧的影响分析,2020年要实现全面建成小康社会的经济目标需要实施改革力度更大、更为有效的财政和货币等支持政策。     

新冠肺炎疫情的经济影响分析：长期视角与短期应对*

本文从需求和供给两侧分析了此次新冠疫情对我国经济的短期和长期影响。在需求侧，基于理论分析和非典疫情对经济的影响特征，经济总需求会随着此次疫情的结束而在短期内快速得到恢复。但此次疫情也会加大总需求和居民收入增速的下行压力。在供给侧，疫情不仅会降低劳动力资源配置效率，加剧劳动力供需结构矛盾，同时也大幅降低了我国的资本投资，在缺乏有效干预措施下，很可能加剧我国资本投资和经济总体增速的短期下滑趋势。而基于理论分析，相应供给冲击也将对我国长期产出带来增长压力。基于疫情对我国经济需求侧和供给侧的影响分析，2020年要实现全面建成小康社会的经济目标需要实施改革力度更大、更为有效的财政和货币等支持政策。     

Intrafirm human capital externalities and selection bias

This article investigates the existence of intrafirm human capital externalities in the Spanish economy. In doing so, it focusses on two estimation issues. First, a semiparametric methodology is used to estimate externalities in a more flexible way that allows to affect all parameters in the equation. Second, two approaches to control for selection bias are designed for use in cross-section data. Our results show a higher externality effect on wages when using the semi parametric approach as compared to the standard estimation approach. Additionally, the estimations even when controlling for selection bias give evidence of externalities.     

Duplication externalities in an endogenous growth model with physical capital,human capital,and R&D

This paper devises an endogenous growth model with physical capital, human capital and product variety. Differently to previous works, innovation is subject to externalities associated to the duplication of research effort, as well as to R&D spillovers. We provide conditions for the existence of a unique feasible steady-state equilibrium with positive long-run growth. For appropriate parameter values, the transitional dynamics of the model is represented by a two-dimensional stable manifold. Numerical simulations show that the incorporation of duplication externalities significantly increases the ability of the model to fit the observed data.     

Preferences for Educational Status,Human Capital Accumulation,and Growth

Using an overlapping generations model in which human capital accumulation has positive external effects on the production of the human capital of future generations, this paper analyzes implications of agents’ having preferences for educational status, represented by human capital holdings relative to the social average. Examining the value and sign of the optimal distortionary tax in the optimal taxation scheme, we analyze the efficiency of the level of human capital accumulation in a decentralized economy. The desire for educational status can compensate for insufficient accumulation of human capital stemming from human capital externalities directed toward future generations.     

Optimal social security in a dynastic model with human capital externalities,fertility and endogenous growth

In this paper we investigate the optimal scale of pay-as-you-go social security in a dynastic family model with human capital externalities, fertility and endogenous growth. Human capital externalities reduce the return to human capital investment and hence lead to under-investment in human capital and over-reproduction of the population. If the taste for the number of children is sufficiently weak relative to the taste for the welfare of children, social security can be welfare enhancing by reducing fertility and raising human capital investment per child.     

Consumption externalities: a representative consumer model when agents are heterogeneous

We examine a growth model with consumption externalities where agents differ in their initial capital endowment and their reference group. We show under which conditions the aggregate equilibrium with heterogeneous agents replicates that obtained with a representative consumer, despite the fact that different individuals have different consumption levels. Next we consider the implications of the presence of consumption externalities for the long-run distributions of income and wealth. We find that, in a growing economy, “keeping up with the Joneses” results in less inequality than would prevail in an economy with no consumption externalities.     

A translog production function for the Spanish provinces: Impact of the human and physical capital in economic growth

A translog production function and an extended translog production function with third-order terms are estimated for the 50 Spanish provinces in the period 1985–2006. The results show the existence of complementarity relationships between private physical and human capital. Likewise, they show the existence of decreasing returns of private physical and human capital. However, the direction of the decreasing returns of private physical capital is reversed for a high endowment level of this factor. These results suggest the importance of capitalizing the Spanish economy, since it would increase the effect of human capital upon productivity and may also generate positive externalities.     

A positive theory of social security

In this paper I make two points. First, I argue that social security programs around the world link public pensions to retirement: people do not lose their pensions if they make a million dollars a year in the stock market, but they do confront marginal tax rates of up to 100 percent if they choose to work. Second, after arguing that most existing theories cannot explain this fact, I construct a positive theory that is consistent with it. The main idea is that pensions are a means to induce retirement—that is, to buy the elderly out of the labor force because aggregate output is higher if the elderly do not work. This is modeled through positive externalities in the average stock of human capital: because skills depreciate with age, the elderly have lower-than-average skill and, as a result, have a negative effect on the productivity of the young. When the difference between the skill level of the young and that of the old is large enough, aggregate output in an economy where the elderly do not work is higher. Retirement is desirable in this case, and social security transfers are the means by which such retirement is induced. The theory developed in this paper is also shown to be consistent with a number of other regularities documented in Section 1.