From Physical to Human Capital Accumulation: Inequality and the Process of Development

This paper develops a growth theory that captures the replacement of physical capital accumulation by human capital accumulation as a prime engine of growth along the process of development. It argues that the positive impact of inequality on the growth process was reversed in this process. In early stages of the Industrial Revolution, when physical capital accumulation was the prime source of growth, inequality stimulated development by channelling resources towards individuals with a higher propensity to save. As human capital emerged as a growth engine, equality alleviated adverse effects of credit constraints on human capital accumulation, stimulating the growth process.     

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.     

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.     

A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Cultural Dimensions,Technology Knowledge and Economic Growth

Using data from 65 countries over the period 1980–2003, this paper investigates the role that cultural dimensions play in the process of technological change, innovation and adoption and consequently on the steady state level of output per worker and its growth, using spatial econometrics techniques to account for spatial dependence between countries. Initial findings indicate that differences across cultural dimensions act as a leveling effect but not as long run growth determinants. In addition, when controlling for physical and human capital accumulation, culture plays a much smaller role in explaining differences in income per capita than initially thought, with little effect on output per worker growth along the transitional dynamics path. Spatial econometric considerations are relevant in explaining differences across rates of growth of per worker output, but not in terms of steady‐state levels of income.     

社会性别视野中的人力资本投资

基于人力资本投资性别差异的现实,论述了人力资本投资中社会经济发展水平和社会文化对性别歧视的影响.通过社会关系分析法,揭示了人力资本理论中所存在的社会性别歧视,提出了经济发展水平的提高可以减少人力资本投资的性别歧视,社会文化的进步是消除人力资本投资性别歧视的根本.     

中国传统文化信念、人力资本积累与家庭养老保障机制

本文首先构建一个人力资本积累模型,考察传统文化信念驱动下的家庭养老保障机制以及社会养老保障制度对家庭养老和人力资本投资行为进而对经济增长的影响。分析表明,传统文化信念将后代人力资本积累与父代养老保障有机地联系起来,提供了一种很好的家庭养老保障和人力资本内生积累机制;现收现付型社会养老保障制度不利于人力资本积累和经济增长。其次,本文以我国现实数据为基础进行实证研究,得到结论是社会养老保障制度对我国人力资本积累和经济增长具有明显的抑制作用,而家庭养老保障机制的良好运转则有助于更好地促进人力资本积累和经济增长。因此,我国在致力于完善社会养老保障制度的同时,决不能忽视家庭养老保障机制的作用与培育。     

The autocratic roots of social distrust

This paper presents evidence that autocratic culture adversely affects social trust and political participation. We find that individuals whose ancestors migrated from countries with higher autocracy levels are less likely to trust others and to vote in presidential elections in the U.S. The impact of autocratic culture on trust can last for at least three generations while the impact on voting disappears after one generation. These impacts on trust and voting are also significant across Europe. We further access the robustness of our findings concerning selection into migration and other confounders such as home countries’ economic conditions, human capital stocks, and the strength of family ties.     

Reconsidering social capital: a latent class approach

Social capital has proven to be a useful concept, but has not been well-measured in the economics literature. We motivate and demonstrate the application of latent class models to measure social capital, based on the idea that social capital is an unobservable multidimensional construct. We explain and show the construction of latent classes that measure an individual’s social capital using data from the General Social Survey. Our method generates meaningfully different conclusions about the accumulation of social capital than those obtained by previous research. We present evidence that higher income influences social capital accumulation because of a higher opportunity cost of time. We also find evidence of complementarities in social capital accumulation within an individual’s peer group. Finally, we show that community heterogeneity influences the likelihood that individuals adhere to certain social norms independent of their propensity to participate in voluntary organizations.     

Celso Furtado: Culture and Creativity Matter

This article deals with the relationship between development, creativity, and culture. It is based on the works of Celso Furtado — a Brazilian economist, a member of ECLAC’s first generation of scholars (along with Raul Prebisch), and a notable intellectual of sub-development and development in Brazil and Latin America. For Furtado, economic development is an endogenous social process that leads to human ingenuity and creativity. However, Furtado argued that creativity does not occur haphazardly. It is conditioned by cultural structures that can take two forms: material (means) or immaterial (ends). The former steers creativity toward serving material accumulation and consumption, while the latter guides it toward individuals’ existential way of life. Furtado’s central claim is that, in the “industrial civilization,” such values as rationality and efficiency bring human creativity into the production process.     

Beyond Regulation: Towards a Cultural Political Economy of Complexity and Emergence

Drawing on and contributing to materialist state theory, the regulation approach and institutional economics for more than three decades, Bob Jessop can certainly be considered one of the foremost Marxist political economists of our time. Recently, he has taken on board the cultural turn in social analysis by developing a highly original cultural political economy of the knowledge-based economy. As a contribution to the further development of a cultural political economy that is sensitive to the cultural dimensions of social life while retaining an emphasis on capital accumulation and state regulation, this article directs attention to the limits of Jessop's approach and suggests possible amendments to the theory. In particular, the article highlights the need to move beyond a concern with regulation towards a cultural political economy of complexity and emergence.     

文化资本对企业研发效率的影响——基于广东省21个地级市面板数据的实证研究

首先,根据文化资本的构成选取间接测量指标,利用2002—2010年广东省21个地级市大中型工业企业的面板数据,运用因子分析法对广东省21个地级市的文化资本量(包括有形文化资本量和无形文化资本量)进行了评估测算;然后,运用随机前沿影响因素模型,实证分析了文化资本对广东省21个地级市大中型工业企业研发效率的影响。研究结果显示:广东省各地级市的平均企业研发效率处于较低水平;有形文化资本和无形文化资本对大中型工业企业的研发效率均具有显著的促进作用;控制变量中的外商直接投资对企业研发效率的促进作用显著,自然资源消耗对企业研发效率的提升具有明显的抑制作用。     

文化资本、社会网络资本和家族企业的成长

家族企业的成长必然要融合社会金融资本与人力资本,但融合是以社会网络资本为中介,如何提升社会网络资本总量成了家族企业成长的关键因素。文章从文化资本影响社会网络资本的作用机制探讨我国家族企业如何在社会网络资本积累中获得成长。     

Endogenous population with human and physical capital accumulation

This paper proposes an economic growth model with population growth and physical and human capital accumulation. The physical capital accumulation is built on the Solow growth model (Solow in Q J Econ 70:65–94, 1956). The education and human capital accumulation is influenced by the Uzawa–Lucas model (Uzawa in Int Econ Rev 6:18–31, 1965; Lucas in J Monet Econ 22:3–42, 1988). The population dynamics are influenced by the Haavelmo population model (Haavelmo in a study in the theory of economic evolution. Haavelmo, Amsterdam, 1954) and the Barro–Becker fertility choice model (Barro and Becker in Econometrica 57:481–501, 1989). We synthesize these dynamic forces in a compact framework, applying an alternative utility function proposed by Zhang (Econ Lett 42:105–110, 1993). The model describes a dynamic interdependence between population change, wealth accumulation, human capital accumulation, and division of labor. We simulate the model to demonstrate the existence of equilibrium points and to plot the motion of the dynamic system. We also examine the effects of changes in the propensity to have children, the mortality rate parameter, the propensity to receive education, the human capital utilization efficiency, and the mortality rate elasticity of human capital upon dynamic paths of the system.     

Culture and human capital in a two-sector endogenous growth model

Recent literature in the field of cultural economics highlights a possible inversion in the usual causality relation (from economic growth to culture) and points out that culture may represent an important driver of economic growth. By viewing culture in line with Throsby’s (2001) definition of cultural capital (i.e., an asset of tangible and intangible cultural expressions), in this article we analyze one possible channel through which culture may positively affect economic growth, namely the existence of a relationship of complementarity between cultural and human capital investments. Using a two-sector endogenous growth model, we find that in the long run a higher growth rate of real per-capita income can be attained the more cultural and human capital investments are complementary for each other in the process leading to agents’ skill acquisition. We also analyze the conditions under which an increase of the cultural capital share in total GDP can be conducive to a rise of real per-capita income.     

The dynamics of catch-up and skill and technology upgrading in China

This paper accounts for China’s economic growth since 1980 in a unified endogenous growth model in which a sequencing of physical capital accumulation, human capital accumulation and innovation drives the rise in China’s aggregate income. The first stage is characterized by physical capital accumulation. The second stage includes both physical and human capital accumulation, and in the final stage innovation is added to the mix. Model calibrations indicate that the growth model can generate a trajectory that accords well with the different stages of development in China.     

Entrepreneurs, Professionals, and Growth

We examine the implications for growth and development of the existence of two types of human capital: entrepreneurial and professional. Entrepreneurs accumulate human capital through a work-experience intensive process, whereas professionals human capital accumulation is education-intensive. Moreover, the return to entrepreneurship is uncertain. We show how skill-biased technological progress leads to changes in the composition of aggregate human capital; as technology improves, individuals devote less time to the accumulation of human capital through work experience and more to the accumulation of human capital through professional training. Thus, our model explains why entrepreneurs play a relatively more important role in intermediate-income countries and professionals are relatively more abundant in richer economies. It also shows that those countries that initially have too little of either entrepreneurial or professional human capital may end up in a development trap.     

政府政策、人力资本与地区经济增长——以山东为例

笔者通过理论模型的建立以及实际数据的实证分析,对山东省人力资本存量与经济增长之间的关系进行系统研究。结论表明,现行的公共教育体制对人力资本积累和经济增长都有促进作用;物质资本和对外开放有利于人才的聚集和流动,促进了人力资本积累,进而有利于经济增长;财政分权有利于经济增长和人力资本积累;过度的财政负担不利于人力资本积累和经济增长。最后还从政府的角度给出了加快山东省人力资本积累和促进经济增长的政策建议。     

The effect of education subsidies on regional economic growth and disparities in China

This paper examines the impact of education subsidies on regional economic growth and the disparities between two Chinese regions, Jiangsu and Liaoning, by simulating their economies in a six-period overlapping generations model in which individuals decide their length of education. This study estimates the long-run growth rates, that is, the steady growth paths of the regional economies based on current education subsidies, and explores their effect on human capital accumulation, namely in terms of economic growth while considering the increase in education subsidies. Because greater government subsidies in education induce individuals to invest in human capital, both regions achieve higher economic growth. Moreover, because of the large differences in productivity between the regions, the growth gap widens with evenly raised education subsidy rates.     

Moving to safety and staying in school: The effects of violence on enrollment decisions in Mexico

There is a vast literature documenting negative impacts of crime on human capital accumulation, which has focused on large‐scale armed conflicts affecting both individuals and infrastructure. However, there is much less evidence in contexts where violence is not accompanied by the destruction of infrastructure. To fill this gap, this paper studies the effects of Mexico's War on Drugs (WoD) on individuals’ schooling decisions. Our results show only small effects of violence on total enrollment of children and young adults, in contrast to recent studies which find significant negative effects for some specific age‐by‐gender groups. Our analysis, which aims to assess the overall impacts of the WoD on enrollment decisions and takes advantage of various rounds of administrative data, the population census, and labor force surveys, shows that many families responded to the increase in violence by migrating to less affected municipalities. However, we find that their education decisions have been quite robust as greater violence did not affect their probability of being enrolled in school. In the long term, however, it is still possible that the increase in violence affects human capital accumulation through indirect effects arising in skill acquisition in early childhood and other stages.     

最低工资提高对企业员工人力资本的影响分析

最低工资对人力资本的影响是其效应的一个重要方面。本文基于博弈论的方法,从企业雇员培训和工人自身人力资本投资两个角度对最低工资提高于企业员工人力资本的影响进行分析,发现最低工资提高会增加中等技术水平工人的入力资本积累,同时可能减少低技能水平工人的人力资本积累。最后,提出相关建议,认为政府应提高对低技能工人的关注度。