Human Capital and Growth Cycles

This paper studies the dynamic interaction between human capital accumulation and economic growth. Capital market imperfections and an indivisibility in human capital investment prevent poor agents from accumulating skills, the acquisition of which positively affects technological progress. More productive technologies in turn require more sophisticated qualification and involve higher training costs. The equilibrium dynamics can be characterized by the joint evolution of productivity growth, the schooling costs, and the income distribution. Under our assumptions, individual incomes follow a non-linear Markov chain. This non-linearity generates endogenous fluctuations of schooling activities and the rate at which productivity improvements occur. We thank an anonymous referee for many helpful suggestions. Support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) under grant KA1519/2-2 is gratefully acknowledged.