Human capital investment,credentialing, and wage differentials

This study considers how individuals determine at what ratio they will invest in two different types of education. The first type contributes to the development of labor skills, while the other does not. We refer to the former as human capital investment and the latter as unproductive investment, which improves test scores but has no beneficial effect on students' human capital. We formulate an overlapping‐generations economy in which the rich and poor households invest in both types of education. We find that the ratio of human capital investment to unproductive investment is lower in the economy with medium size of the wage differentials. In a dynamic analysis, we identify two patterns of stable steady states for the dynamics of the wage differentials, namely, no‐inequality and high‐inequality steady states. Further, we show that a rapid increase in the level of skill‐biased technology may cause a switch from a steady state with no‐inequality to one with high inequality. This causes at least a temporary increase in the ratio of unproductive investment during the transition to the new steady state.     

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.     

Economic Growth with Foreign Capital

In growth theory, foreign investment places a small open economy in the international steady state. In applied growth theory, foreign investment is assumed to shift technology. The present growth model separates foreign from domestic capital and develops the steady state where both capital/labor ratios are stationary. A capital scarce country would attract foreign investment and may arrive at a steady state with perpetual foreign investment. Such a steady state foreign investment host is characterized by low saving and high labor growth rates, and source countries the opposite. Incomplete convergence characterizes economic growth with foreign capital.     

Investments into education—Doing as the parents did

Empirical evidence suggests that parents with higher levels of education generally attach a higher importance to the education of their children. This implies an intergenerational chain transmitting the attitude towards the formation of human capital from one generation to the next. We incorporate this intergenerational chain into an OLG-model with endogenous human capital formation. In absence of any state intervention such an economy might be characterized by multiple steady states with low or high human capital levels. There are also steady states where the population is permanently divided into different groups with differing human capital and welfare levels. Compulsory schooling is needed to overcome steady states with low human capital and welfare levels. Tax financed education subsidies can lead to further pareto-improvements.     

Misallocation of talent,teachers’ human capital,and development in Brazil

In this study, we investigate the allocation of talent in an economy where teachers play a critical role in developing the human capital of the workforce. To this end, we formulate a Roy model with externality in the occupational choice, as the quantity and quality of teachers are key determinants of workers’ human capital. Our analysis suggests that when individuals with greater abilities opt for teaching careers, the entire workforce benefits. However, frictions in the labor and educational goods markets may lead to a suboptimal allocation of talent and hinder economic growth and development. Our model is calibrated to the Brazilian economy, and our findings reveal a negative correlation between frictions in the teacher’s occupation and per capita output in the Brazilian states. Our results indicate that eliminating friction in the labor market could result in a 16.94% increase in Brazilian income.     

The Budget Deficit, Public Debt, and Endogenous Growth

This paper analyzes the effects of public debt on endogenous growth in an overlapping generations model. The government fixes the budget deficit ratio. If the deficit ratio stays below a critical level, then there are two steady states where capital, output, and public debt grow at the same constant rate. An increase in the deficit ratio reduces the growth rate. If the deficit ratio exceeds the critical level, then there is no steady state. Capital growth declines continuously, and capital is driven down to zero in finite time.     

Real Minimum Wage and Growth Theory: Simulations and Some Policy Results

Abstract

A Solow type two‐sector growth model is used to examine several issues related to growth and unemployment in a minimum wage economy. By simulating the model, we demonstrate that given the same percentage increase in wage rate, an economy with a higher capital–labor ratio is more likely to decay. More importantly, a tariff policy reduces the unemployment periods by 92% provided that the current capital–labor ratio is one‐sixth of that of the steady state capital–labor ratio. We assume that the first best policy of uniform wage subsidy is not politically feasible.     

CAPITAL‐ AND LABOR‐SAVING TECHNICAL CHANGE IN AN AGING ECONOMY

Does population aging and the associated increase in the old‐age dependency ratio affect economic growth? The answer is given in a novel analytical framework that allows for population aging to affect endogenous capital‐ and labor‐saving technical change. In a steady state capital‐saving technical progress vanishes, and the economy's growth rate of per‐capita variables reflects only labor‐saving technical change. The mere possibility of capital‐saving technical change is shown to imply that the economy's steady‐state growth rate becomes independent of its age structure: Neither a higher life expectancy nor a decline in fertility affects economic growth in the long run.     

Offshoring and occupational specificity of human capital

I document that workers in newly tradable service occupations possess more occupation-specific human capital and are more highly educated than workers in previously tradable occupations. Motivated by this observation, I develop a dynamic equilibrium model with labor market frictions and specific human capital to study the labor adjustment process after a trade shock. When calibrated to match the increase in U.S. trade between 1990 and 2010, the model suggests that (1) output increases immediately after a trade shock and converges quickly to the steady state; (2) labor market institutions likely play a larger role in the adjustment process than specific human capital; (3) the short run distributional effects are small if the labor market is flexible, even in the presence of specific human capital.     

Optimal fiscal policy in the Uzawa-Lucas model with externalities

Summary. This paper devises a fiscal policy by means of which the first-best optimum equilibrium is attained as a market equilibrium in the Uzawa-Lucas model when average human capital has an external effect on productivity. The optimal policy requires the use of a subsidy to investment in human capital which can be financed by a tax on labor income. Lump-sum taxation is not required to balance the government budget either in the steady state or in the transitional phase. Physical capital income should not be taxed. Alternatively, the optimal growth path can be attained by means of a subsidy to human capital. Received: March 21, 2002; revised version: September 4, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through PNICDYIT grant SEC2002-03663 is gratefully acknowledged.     

LABOR‐MARKET FRICTIONS,HUMAN CAPITAL ACCUMULATION,AND LONG‐RUN GROWTH: POSITIVE ANALYSIS AND POLICY EVALUATION*

We construct a search model with endogenous human capital and labor participation to study the growth effects of short‐run frictions and the effectiveness of human capital policies. Employment, learning effort, and output growth increase with more effective learning, better labor‐market matching, lower job separation, or less costly vacancy creation. Although output growth, employment, vacancy creation, and learning and search effort are most responsive to changes in a human capital policy that directly affects learning effort, such a policy need not be more beneficial for welfare. The effects of human capital policies become larger as the severity of labor‐market frictions rises.     

Endogenous technological progress in a multi-sector growth model

This paper presents an endogenous growth model driven by human capital, where human capital can be allocated across three sectors: the production of the final consumption good, the educational sector and the production of technological capital (in the form of knowledge or ideas). In our model, which also includes public expenditure and population growth, labor augmenting technical progress is endogenous and this enriches the transitional dynamics of the economy. With respect to ideas-based growth models, we assume knowledge is produced according to a neoclassical technology, combining ideas and human capital. Such an assumption is motivated by empirical works showing the existence of significant decreasing returns in the creation of ideas at the aggregate level (as Kortum, 1993; and Pessoa, 2005) and of the weak relationship between some inputs of the knowledge production process (as the number of researchers) and the total factor productivity growth rate (as Jones, 2002). Under some general conditions, this economy exhibits the existence of a steady state equilibrium and an unstable multidimensional manifold. Numerical examples are provided to show the existence of stable arms.     

CONSUMPTION AND LEISURE EXTERNALITIES, ECONOMIC GROWTH AND EQUILIBRIUM EFFICIENCY

This paper analyzes the effects of consumption and leisure externalities on growth and welfare in a two‐sector endogenous growth model with human capital accumulation. Both types of externalities are shown to affect the long‐run equilibrium and optimal growth rates in a rather different way. The relationship between the steady state of the market and the centrally planned economy is also analyzed. The optimal growth path can be decentralized by resorting to consumption or labor income taxation, whereas capital income should be untaxed. Numerical simulations suggest that growth and welfare effects of mild consumption and leisure externalities may be quantitatively important.     

Human Capital and the Convergence Process Among Countries

This paper examines the convergence process across countries for the period 1980–2000, giving special attention to the role of human capital as a conditioning factor. The originality of the study is in the use of new proxies for human capital, such as publications and patents ratio and the patents/articles ratio which reflect the efficiency of the scientific work, in contrast to the quantitative measures usually used in the growth literature. The analysis suggests that: (i) convergence is conditional on structural factors, population growth, human and physical capital; (ii) the new proxies of human capital control fairly well the different steady‐states among countries; (iii) the different levels of human capital affect countries differently, according to their levels of development. Higher levels of human capital are suitable to differentiate the convergence process among developed countries, and basic or intermediate levels are more suitable to differentiate convergence among the less developed countries.     

浙江省经济转型中的人力资本分析

人力资本是促进经济转型升级的核心资本。十年来,浙江省劳动力总量不断扩张、综合素质稳步提升,为经济社会发展提供了重要人力资本支持。但是浙江人力资本现状仍不能满足经济转型发展需求,需要构建适应经济转型特点的人力资本体系。     

China's Recent Economic Performance and Future Prospects*

Our forecast of China's economic future is based primarily on the supply side growth accounting model. The life cycle model of household saving provides us with the most plausible explanation for a continued high rate of savings and investment. China's labor force will soon stop growing, but migration out of agriculture should have little impact on farm output while providing a steady stream of labor to the modern more productive sectors. There is also room for rapid expansion of human capital. Maintaining high productivity growth will depend primarily on strengthening currently weak institutions, notably the financial sector and, more importantly, the legal system.     

Child allowances,educational subsidies and occupational choice

This paper examines the effects on occupational choice and capital accumulation attributable to government policies of child allowances and educational subsidies. We show that multiple steady states may arise under these two policies, with club convergence occurring, and the initial condition being of relevance, if the tax rate of labor income for skilled labor is fairly high. Under a policy of child allowances, an increase in the tax rate is found to raise the quantity of children, but lower the quality of adults; however, under a policy of educational subsidies, with an increase in the tax rate, corresponding increases are found in both the quantity of children and the quality of adults. For developed countries, introducing child allowances may improve or hurt the welfare while introducing educational subsidies is welfare improving.     

Endogenous fertility and growth in a model with old age support

Summary. This paper examines the interrelationship between capital accumulation, fertility, and growth by introducing an endogenous fertility decision into Diamond's (1965) neoclassical growth model. Under the assumptions that children provide old age support and that individuals incur a variable time cost of raising children, it investigates the potential for cyclical fluctuations in the capital-labor ratio and fertility, as well as for development trap phenomena to be observed. It is shown that when capital and labor are highly substitutable in production, there is a unique steady state equilibrium, and either damped or undamped oscillations in fertility and the capital-labor ratio may occur. However, when the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor is less than one, two steady state equilibria may exist; one with a high capital-labor ratio and a high rate of population growth, and the other with a lower capital-labor ratio as well as a lower population growth rate. The former is a saddle, while the latter may be either a source or a sink. In the latter case development traps are possible. Received: June 16, 1997; revised version: December 18, 1997     

Elasticity of substitution and growth: normalized CES in the Diamond model

Summary. It is often asserted that the more substitutable capital and labor are in the aggregate production the more rapidly an economy grows. Recently this has been formally confirmed within the Solow model by Klump and de La Grandville (2000). This paper demonstrates that there exists no such monotonic relationship between factor substitutability and growth in the Diamond overlapping-generations model. In particular, we prove that, if capital and labor are relatively substitutable, a country with a greater elasticity of substitution exhibits lower per capita output growth in transit and in steady state. Received: October 27, 2001; revised version: February 25, 2002     

Unemployment, credit rationing, and capital accumulation: a tale of two frictions

Summary. This paper develops a model in which two information frictions are embedded into an otherwise conventional neoclassical growth model; an adverse selection problem in the labor market and a costly state verification problem in the credit market. The former allows equilibrium unemployment to arise endogenously while the latter is responsible for equilibrium credit rationing. This structure is used to investigate a theoretical link between the level of unemployment and the extent of credit rationing (and capital formation). The presence of the labor market friction is enough to generate scope for multiple steady state equilibria. The model also generates a large class of endogenous cyclical and chaotic dynamical equilibria. Development trap phenomena may also appear. Received: April 10, 1998; revised version: May 20, 1998