The Impact of Power Equality,Income, and the Environment on Human Health: Some Inter‐Country Comparisons

Economic studies on environmental degradation generally have a narrow focus on per capita income as an explanatory variable, and often fail to distinguish among the various types of environmental quality or damage. This paper addresses both problems by examining the effect of relative equality in the distribution of power on environmental outcomes, and making a clear distinction between health‐related environmental outcomes and so‐called ‘environmental amenities,’ only the latter of which should correlate strongly with income. This paper introduces a national index of power equality that is derived from related socioeconomic variables, and studies its effects on individual country achievement in addressing environmental quality and population health. This model is applied to a data set of 180 countries, as well as to subgroups of the entire country set. Employing disability‐adjusted life expectancy and the population child mortality rate as two health proxies, this paper finds that power equality in most cases positively influences population health, and that power equality is in every case no worse and in some cases better than per capita income at explaining population health.     

HEALTH INVESTMENT AND ECONOMIC OUTPUT IN REGIONAL CHINA

Using a 29‐year (1978–2006) panel of provincial‐level data from China, this article investigates the role of health capital in a human capital model of economic output. Robust evidence is found through panel cointegration analysis that health capital has a significant and positive effect on the Gross Regional Product in China; the effect being stronger in the inland regions compared to the coastal areas based on estimates that account for regional heterogeneity. This article highlights and discusses the potential role of diminishing returns to health investment in this globally important area. (JEL I15, R11, C23)     

健康人力资本与经济增长的均衡分析

按照新经济增长理论观点，当生产函数中加入人力资本和技术水平后会导致各国家和各地区的经济增长呈现差异，并且随着时间的推移将会不断扩大[1]。基于健康人力资本层面，着力研究健康是如何影响经济增长以及所产生的地区经济差异。在总结前人已有的模型基础上，通过在健康生产函数中加入私人健康支出这一变量来构建一个RCK增长模型，结果表明，物质生产函数和健康生产函数的不同类型直接决定着模型的动态结果，在某些情况下经济存在多重均衡，在某些情况下存在着唯一的均衡，在另一些情况下存在极限环。这有助于从理论上来解释现实经济当中所存在的地区经济差异现象。在实证部分对健康投资进行了细分，结果表明我国正处在由传统的“物质资本驱动型经济”向“人力资本驱动型经济”转型时期，在转型过程中应进一步释放私人健康投资的活力。     

Institutions,human capital,and growth: The institutional mechanism

This paper contributes to the debate on the relationship between human capital, institutions, and economic growth. The paper first develops a micro-foundation model linking institutions to human capital. The advantage of our modeling strategy is that the human capital accumulation function is derived from an endogenous process. The theoretical model shows that improvements in the quality of institutions foster human capital accumulation, decrease income inequality and change the historical development path. The paper uses cross-country panel data from 1965 to 2005 to test some of the model's propositions and finds that deep structures or structural institutions – which are very persistent and rooted on the historical development path of an economy – affect long-term economic performance, while political institutions are uncorrelated with productivity and long-term economic growth. The empirical estimates also show that growth of physical and human capital – instead of levels – determines long-run economic growth.     

Capital markets and capital allocation: Implications for economies in transition*

Recent work showing that a sounder financial system is associated with faster economic growth has important implications for transition economies. Stock prices in developed economies move in highly firm‐specific ways that convey information about changes in firms’ marginal value of investment. This information facilitates the rapid flow of capital to its highest value uses. In contrast, stock prices in low‐income countries tend to move up and down en masse, and thus are of scant use for microeconomic capital allocation. Some transition economy markets are coming to resemble those of developed economies, others those of low‐income countries. Stock return asynchronicity is highly correlated with the strength of private property rights in general and public shareholders’ rights in particular. Other recent work suggests that small entrenched elites in low‐income countries preserve their sweeping control over the corporate sectors of their economies by using political influence to undermine the financial system and deprive entrants of capital. The lack of cross‐sectional independence in some transition economies’ stock returns may be a warning of such economic entrenchment. Sound property rights, solid shareholder rights, stock market transparency, and capital account openness appear to check this, and thus contribute to efficient capital allocation and economic growth.     

Interrelationship among institutional infrastructure,technological innovation and growth. An empirical evidence

This paper uses a multi-equation model to achieve an overall study of two key factors which explain growth, technology and institutions. The paper focuses on the process of the accumulation of these factors and the interrelationship arising among them. A theoretical model is given, together with empirical evidence for the joint impact of these factors on economic growth in a wide-ranging sample of countries between 1985 and 1997. This paper also contributes certain novel aspects in the variables employed. Thus, an indicator of human capital and an index reflecting institutional infrastructure have been used. The human capital indicator considers health, formal education, informal education and accumulated experience. It embraces a wider range of factors than the variables conventionally used in empirical studies. As to the institutional infrastructure index, it has been constructed on the basis of six institutional sub-indices, comprising voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption. Thus, the index constructed captures a greater wealth of the items commonly covered by the concept of institutions.     

Economic transition,gender bias,and the distribution of earnings in China*

Market‐oriented economic reform, which accelerated after 1992, has brought substantial changes to the Chinese economy. This dramatic economic transition was raised two important questions: ‘How are women faring in the transition from a planned economy to a market economy?’ and ‘Are some women faring relatively better than other women’? We use data from the Chinese Household Income Projects for the years 1988 and 1995, a standard earnings equation, and quantile regressions to estimate and decompose the earnings gap. Our findings suggest that while the earnings gap has increased, the fraction of the gap ‘unexplained’ by differences in human capital variables such as education and experience has declined over time. This result is particularly pronounced for low earning women.     

Institutional Quality Mediates the Effect of Human Capital on Economic Performance

This paper considers the relationship between institutional quality, educational outcomes, and economic performance. More specifically, we seek to establish the linkages by which government effectiveness affects per capita income via its mediating impact on human capital formation. Our empirical approach adopts a two‐stage strategy that estimates national‐level educational production functions that include government effectiveness as a covariate, and uses these estimates as instruments for human capital in cross‐country regressions of per capita income. Our results identify a significant and positive effect of human capital on per capita income levels, and partially resolves the inconsistency between macro‐ and micro‐level studies of the effect of human capital on income. The results remain robust to alternative specifications, extension to a panel setting, subsamples of the data and fully endogenous institutions.     

Inspiration vs. perspiration in economic development of the Former Soviet Union and China (ca. 1920–2010)

Here, we discuss the role of both perspiration factors (physical and human capital) and inspiration factors (Total Factor Productivity) in the economic development of the Former Soviet Union area (FSU) and China, ca. 1920–2010. Using a newly created dataset, we find that during the Socialist central‐planning period, economic growth in both countries was largely driven by physical capital accumulation. This finding follows logically from the development policies in place at that time. During their transition periods, (i.e., starting from the late 1970s in China and the late 1980s in the FSU), China managed to keep technical inefficiency of production factors in check, largely by massively increasing its human capital, thereby lowering the physical‐to‐human capital ratio. In contrast, the FSU accomplished a similar outcome largely through reducing its stock of physical capital. As a result, although there was little difference in technical efficiency between these two economies, China's emphasis on human capital formation made it easier for this country to improve its general productivity and to increase per capita growth. This changed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the FSU began to recover economically, regaining its 1990 levels of output and productivity.     

Environmental Quality,Medical Care Demand and Environmental Tax Interactions

Assuming that improvements in environmental quality lead to lower demand for medical care, it has been shown that general-equilibrium interactions with the tax-distorted labor market reduce the benefits from such improvements, and thus lower the second-best optimal environmental tax. This paper provides some insights on how the link between environmental quality, individual’s health capital, and the demand for medical care affects the analysis of pollution taxes. The paper develops structural conditions under which improvements in environmental quality decrease/increase the demand for medical care and discusses their implications for environmental tax interactions.      

Physical capital,knowledge capital,and the choice between FDI and outsourcing

Abstract There exist two approaches in the literature concerning the multinational firm’s mode choice for foreign production between an owned subsidiary and a licensing contract. One approach considers environments where the firm transfers primarily knowledge‐based assets and assumes that knowledge is non‐excludable. A more recent approach takes the property‐right view of the firm and assumes that physical capital is fully excludable. This paper combines both forms of capital assets in a single model. There are subtleties, and added structure is needed to establish what ex ante seems a straightforward testable hypothesis: relatively physical‐capital‐intensive firms choose outsourcing while relatively knowledge‐capital‐intensive firms choose FDI.     

Environment, human development and economic growth

Over the last few years, environmental issues have entered into policy design, particularly development and growth policies. Natural resources are considered necessary production inputs and environmental quality is considered a welfare determinant. The integration of environmental issues into economic growth and development theories and empirics is currently widely analyzed in the literature. The effects of natural resources endowment on economic growth are mainly analyzed through the so-called Resource Curse Hypothesis (RCH) whereas the effects of economic growth on environmental quality are part of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Furthermore, recent contributions on RCH and EKC have shown the important role of institutions and human development dimensions in building a sustainable development path. In this paper, we attempt to analyze the causal relationships between economic growth, human development and sustainability combining the RCH and EKC models and adopting a human development perspective. Results confirm the importance of high institutional quality and investments for human capital accumulation in order to build a sustainable development path.     

人力资本对经济增长推动作用研究

人力资本作为一种潜在的资本能量,在与物资资本相结合的生产过程中,价值创造功能会逐渐的显现出来。但在各国实际的经济发展过程中,人力资本发挥作用的物质载体有很大差异,因此这种能量的发挥也会受到具体条件的限制。本文从理论与实证的角度梳理了部分学者关于人力资本对经济增长推动作用的研究。理论上,人力资本通过非知识效应、收入效应、替代效应以及外部效应等相关作用机制对经济增长会起到推动作用,这得到了大家的一致认同;实证分析研究中,由于学者采用的人力资本存量计量方法的不同,结论也不尽相同;而学者在对我国经济增长的实证研究中显示,人力资本对我国经济增长的推动作用不足。     

Impact of Human Capital Endowments on Inequality of Outcomes in Cameroon

This paper evaluates the impact of human capital endowments on measured inequality in Cameroon. We first estimate determinants of household economic well‐being (HEW) in which human capital endowments are considered as endogenous effort‐related regressors, while controlling for exogenous circumstance‐related variables. Second, we simulate alternative counterfactual distributions of HEW: one in which human capital endowments are equalized; and the other in which variations are entirely attributable to the unobservable terms. Finally we compare inequality in the factual distribution of household well‐being with inequality in each of the simulated distributions. Direct and indirect exogenous opportunity‐inducing circumstances are inequality‐augmenting, whereas human capital endowments are inequality‐reducing in the actual distribution. Education and health interventions will ameliorate well‐being and mitigate inequality. Thus, leveling the playing ground for individuals to have equitable exposure to education, health and labor market participation is required for a low‐income country like Cameroon to enhance equity and sustainable household economic growth.     

学校教育与从业经验在我国经济增长中的贡献率

从业经验是人力资本形成的主要途径之一,但国内不少学者在人力资本对经济增长贡献率的实证研究模型中,均未包含反映从业经验的人力资本要素。文章构造了一个既包含学校教育水平,又包含从业经验水平的生产函数模型,并运用它分析了这两个要素在我国1997—2009年经济增长中的贡献率。     

Pollution,Private Investment in Healthcare,and Environmental Policy*

In this paper, we demonstrate that, in a two‐period overlapping‐generations model, the relationship between environmental taxation and economic activity (output level and growth) has an inverted‐U shape when we take into account the detrimental impact of pollution on health and the individual decision of each working‐age agent to improve her health. We also demonstrate that the link between environmental tax and lifetime welfare also has an inverted‐U shape, and that a tighter environmental policy might enhance economic activity while reducing steady‐state lifetime welfare. Finally, we investigate the social optimum and the determinants of the optimal environmental tax.     

Industrial development in Malaysia and Singapore: Empirical analysis with multiple‐cone Heckscher–Ohlin Model

This paper employs the multiple‐cone Heckscher–Ohlin model to analyze industrial development in Malaysia and Singapore. In particular, we focus on industrial upgrading along with capital accumulation as a key determinant for the cross‐country difference in production technology and income. By pooling two countries’ data on factor endowment and sectoral output in manufacturing from 1990 to 2008, we estimate the common industrial development paths of the two‐cone Heckscher–Ohlin model, the Rybczynski linear relationship between capital–labor ratio and sectoral output per capita. Our results demonstrate that, after controlling for quality of workers (by educational attainment), the two countries resided in different cones during our sample period, implying that Singapore succeeded in accumulating capital steadily with the support of foreign investment and upgrading its industry mix to make it more capital‐intensive. The separation of cones is also consistent with the observed gap in gross domestic product per capita between the two countries. Furthermore, we implement a factor‐augmenting productivity test to see the gaps in efficiency of capital and human‐capital‐augmented labor and confirm no significant difference between the two countries.     

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。     

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.     

Economic complexity,human capital and economic growth: empirical research based on cross-country panel data

Economic complexity reflects a country’s production capabilities and plays an important role in economic growth. This article measures the economic complexity of 210 countries using the method of reflections, and investigates the impact of economic complexity and human capital on economic growth. The measurement results show that there are significant differences regarding the level of complexity among countries. High-income economies have higher complexity than low- and middle-income economies. The empirical findings demonstrate that economic complexity and different levels of human capital have positive effects on long- and short-term growth. A positive interaction effect on economic growth exists between economic complexity and human capital. In addition, secondary education as a proxy for human capital has a relatively greater positive direct effect and a much stronger interactive effect with complexity on economic growth. In addition, the magnitude of the interaction effect between economic complexity and human capital on long- and short-term growth increases as the revealed comparative advantage threshold grows.