Growth and social security: the role of human capital

This paper studies the growth and efficiency effects of pay-as-you-go financed social security when human capital is the engine of growth. Employing a variant of the Lucas model [Lucas, R.E., 1988. On the mechanics of economic development. Journal of Monetary Economics 22, 3–42.] with overlapping generations, it is shown that a properly designed, unfunded social security system leads to higher output growth than a fully funded one. Furthermore, the economy with an unfunded social security is efficient, while the other one is not. These results stand in sharp contrast to those obtained in models where the reason for economic growth is physical capital accumulation.     

Investment in human capital and gender wage differences: evidence from the NLSY

This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to investigate gender differences in returns to various forms of human capital. Since the NLSY includes relatively detailed information regarding on- and off-the-job training, we place special emphasis on measuring gender differences in the incidence of and returns to formal post-school training. Also considered is the role of nonhuman capital factors such as industry and occupation in explaining the wage gap. It is found that about 60% of the gender wage gap in the sample is explained by mean differences in individual characteristics and market circumstances. This suggests a smaller role for discrimination in explaining the wage gap than previous research has found. The research indicates that training does not affect the gender wage gap. Also it is found that there is no statistically significant difference in the rate of return to other measures of human capital for women versus men. Our research suggests that the largest factors contributing to the wage gap are differences in the stocks of human capital for men and women, and differences in the distributions of men and women across industries and occupations.     

Elasticity of substitution and productivity, capital and skill intensity differences across firms

This paper, instrumented with six theorems, shows that differences between firms in labor productivity, capital intensity and relative demand for skilled labor can be explained by differences in the substitution parameters between capital, skilled and unskilled labor in the presence of skill biased technical change.     

Globalizing labor and the world economy: the role of human capital

We develop a dynamic model of the world economy that jointly endogenizes individual decisions about fertility, education and migration. We then use it to compare the short- and long-term effects of immigration restrictions on the world distribution of income. Our calibration strategy replicates the economic and demographic characteristics of the world, and allows us to proxy bilateral migration costs and visa costs for two classes of workers and for each pair of countries. In our benchmark simulations, the world average level of income per worker increases by 12% in the short term and by approximately 52% after one century. These results are highly robust to our identifying strategy and technological assumptions. Sizable differences are obtained when our baseline (pre-liberalization) trajectory involves a rapid income convergence between countries or when we adjust visa costs for a possible upward bias. Our quantitative analysis reveals that the effects of liberalizing migration on human capital accumulation and income are gradual and cumulative. Whatever is the size of the short-term gain, the long-run impact is 4 to 5 times greater (except under a rapid convergence in income).     

International technology spillovers,human capital and productivity linkages: evidence from the industrial sector

The paper estimates an empirical model that is consistent with a variety of Research and Development (R&D)-driven models of growth where technology is transmitted via trade to other industries, both domestically and internationally, by being embodied in differentiated intermediate goods. The evidence is based on data from 21 manufacturing industries in six European Union countries for the period 1980–1997. The contribution of the paper lies in showing how by including human capital in the model and employing suitable econometric procedures the magnitude of R&D spillovers reported in the existing literature can be affected, while pointing to a major role of human capital in economic growth process.     

Corporate governance,human capital,and productivity: evidence from Chinese non-listed firms

This article analyses the effects of corporate governance (CG) and human capital on productivity by using the 1999–2006 data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC). The findings of this study are twofold. First, CG and human capital generate significant positive effects on the productivity of both state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-SOEs. Second, CG has significantly different moderate and mediate effects on the relationship between human capital and productivity. Our results are robust to different specifications and alternative measures. This study provides clear policy implications by suggesting that the firms in emerging markets, especially SOEs, must improve their CG and their allocation of human capital for them to enhance their productivity.     

Gender differences in lying

Aversion to lying has been consistently observed in sender-receiver games. Women have demonstrated greater aversion to lying for a small monetary benefit in these games than men. We test the robustness of this gender difference in a sender-receiver game with larger stakes. We find no difference in lying by gender.     

Gender differences in e-commerce

Predictors of shopping online were compared for men and women using a sample of 365 college students. For the men, the only predictor of purchasing products online was the number of hours they spent online. For women, the predictors of making purchases online included anxiety about using computers and attitudes toward money, in addition to the number of hours spent online. The results were examined using OLS and MLE (logit and probit) regressions techniques, and the results from each technique compared and contrasted.     

The role of human and social capital in growth: extending our understanding

Human capital, institutions and social capital are now all recognisedas significant factors of growth. They have largely been studiedseparately, and although they present sufficient common characteristicsto be conceptualised as one main category distinct from physicalcapital, it may still be more important to focus on the linksbetween their specific sub-categories. Direct links with incomemay be spurious, as there appears to be a ‘web of associations’between the sub-categories, which would benefit from furtherempirical investigation. This paper reviews the literature onhuman capital, institutions and social capital, extracting threesub-categories of human capital (human skills capital, stock-of-knowledgeand entrepreneurship) and two of social capital (low- and high-rationalisation).Specific areas are then suggested for further empirical study.     

Labor productivity growth: disentangling technology and capital accumulation

How much of the convergence in labor productivity that we observe in manufacturing is due to convergence in technology versus convergence in capital-labor ratios? To shed light on this question, we introduce a nonparametric counterfactual decomposition of labor productivity growth into growth of the capital-labor ratio (K/L), technological productivity (TEP) and total factor productivity (TFP). Our nonparametric specification enables us to model technology allowing for heterogeneity across all relevant dimensions (i.e. countries, sectors and time). Using data spanning from the 1960s to the 2000s, covering 42 OECD and non OECD countries across 11 manufacturing sectors, we find TEP and TFP to account for roughly 46 and ?6% of labor productivity growth respectively, on average. While technological growth at the world level is driven primarily by the US and a handful of other OECD countries, we find strong evidence of convergence in both technology and capital-labor ratios. Interestingly, very few of the usual growth determinants are found to enhance the process of technological catching-up.     

Knowledge spillovers through FDI and trade: the moderating role of quality-adjusted human capital

The paper extends the findings of the Coe and Helpman (Eur Econ Rev 39(5):859-887, 1995) model of R&D spillovers by considering foreign direct investment (FDI) as a channel for knowledge spillovers in addition to imports. Deeper insights on the issue are provided by examining the inter-relationship between knowledge spillovers from imports and inward FDI. Furthermore, human capital is added to the discussion as one of the appropriability factors for knowledge spillovers, with special focus on its quality-content, using journal publications and patent applications. Applying cointegration estimation method on 20 European countries from 1995 to 2010, the direct effects of FDI-related as well as import-related spillovers on domestic productivity are confirmed. Furthermore, a strong complementary relationship is found between knowledge spillovers through the channels of imports and inward FDI. When considering quality-adjusted human capital, countries with better human capital are found to benefit not only from direct productivity effects, but also from absorption and transmission of international knowledge spillovers through imports and inward FDI. Finally, technological distance with the frontier does not appear to play a role in the absorption of import and FDI related knowledge spillovers.     

Public and private capital productivity in Russia: a non-parametric investigation

The productivity of public capital has been very popular research topic for US and other OECD countries, while studies using data from transitional countries are almost non-existent. In this paper, we analyze the productivity of public and private capital in Russia with parametric and non-parametric regression methods utilizing a unique regional level panel data from 2003 to 2007. More specifically, we assess public capital’s spillover effects, i.e., the productivity of public capital on private output, as well as the productivity of different capital ownership types on total output. We find that public capital has a clear positive effect on private output. However, our estimates and test statistics show that parametric methods are not able to grasp vast non-linearities and heterogeneity present among Russian regions, while the non-parametric approach can capture these important features of the data better. Furthermore, we find that multicollinearity is an important methodological problem which should be accounted for in analysis concerning capital data. Our results also suggest that the impact of public capital in Russia is heterogeneous in the sense that for some regions its contribution to private output is insignificant or even negative while it has a considerable positive role for most regions. Concerning the capital elasticities of total output, we find that public capital is less productive than private capital and roughly as productive as joint private-public capital.     

Gender differences in time preferences

This paper reports the results from a large online experiment in which we examine gender differences in time preferences. Subjects choose in different situations between receiving an immediate payment and receiving a different sum later. We find that more men than women are impatient and choose to receive the immediate payment, at least if the implicit interest rate of the “late” option is neither too high nor too low.     

The timing of childbearing: The role of human capital and personal preferences

As significant as the shift from quantity to quality in fertility decisions, a rise in the median age at first birth has been commonly observed in the more developed world. This paper attempts to understand the latter demographic trend from the empirical perspective. We first construct a conditional hazard model that incorporates determinants of birth spacing, with a primary emphasis on human capital and personal preference factors. We then examine the importance of these factors, using a rich data set comprised of a selected sample of women from various cohorts reported in the 1980 Taiwan Census. Our results show that, in addition to the age at marriage, human capital factors such as the woman’s education, job security and occupation are all significant in influencing the first spacing. The roles played by these human capital factors become even more important for the second spacing. In the third spacing, the relative importance of education and occupation still persists, while gender preferences become much stronger. Overall, while job security shortens the timing of childbearing, better education and occupation as well as more girls from previous births all lead to delays in births. As for preference factors, we find that elementary school teachers have a shorter birth-spacing compared to junior high school teachers, indicating possible personal preferences for children that are consistent with women’s job selection.     

Human capital in OECD countries: Technical change,efficiency and productivity

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of human capital in the productivity gains of the OECD countries in the period 1965-90, breaking down the productivity gains into technical change and gains in efficiency. For this purpose we use both a stochastic frontier approach and a non-parametric approach (DEA) and calculate Malmquist indices of productivity. The results obtained indicate the existence of both a level effect (a higher level of human capital raises labour productivity) and a rate effect (a higher level of human capital affects positively the rate of technical change) associated with human capital. The differences among countries in endowments of human capital have worked against labour productivity convergence, since the richer countries, thanks to their greater endowment of human capital, have experienced higher rates of technical change.     

Embodiment, productivity, and the age distribution of capital

An important theme in modern research on productivity has been that technological progress may be embodied in capital in the sense that traditional measures of TFP growth reflect unmeasured improvements in the quality of capital inputs as well as pure disembodied technological progress. It is commonly believed that an implication of this embodiment hypothesis is that there should be a negative relationship between measured TFP and the age of the measured capital stock. This paper presents empirical evidence which suggests that an increase in the age of the capital stock is actually associated with higher TFP growth. This surprising result may be due to the presence of a mis-measurement normally overlooked in this literature: With mis-measured improvements in capital quality, the usual depreciation rates used to construct empirical capital stocks are incorrect for growth accounting. This effect dominates the usual average age effect.     

The role of human capital and innovation in economic development: evidence from post-Malthusian Prussia

The effect of human capital on growth involves multiple channels. On the one hand, an increase in human capital directly affects economic growth by enhancing labor productivity in production. On the other hand, human capital is an important input into R&D and therefore increases labor productivity indirectly by accelerating technological change. In addition, different types of human capital such as basic and higher education or training-on-the-job might play different roles in both production and innovation activities. We merge individual data on valuable patents granted in Prussia in the late nineteenth-century with county-level data on literacy, craftsmanship, secondary schooling, and income tax revenues to explore the complex relationship between various types of human capital, innovation, and income. We find that the Second Industrial Revolution can be seen as a transition period when it comes to the role of human capital. As in the preceding First Industrial Revolution, “useful knowledge” embodied in master craftsmen was related to innovation, especially of independent inventors. As in the subsequent twentieth century, the quality of basic education was associated with both workers’ productivity and firms’ R&D processes. In a final step, we show that literacy had also a negative effect on fertility which increased with innovation. In general, our findings support the notion that the accumulation of basic human capital was crucial for the transition to modern economic growth.     

Operating capital and productivity patterns in jute weaving in Bangladesh

Data from 39 individual nationalized jute weaving mills are examined to establish a typical pattern (at the mill-level) for the productivity of operating capital, namely operating looms. (This pattern also applies in this case to operating labour.) Productivity of operating capital characteristically increases first at a decreasing rate as a function of mill-age, and after peaking declines asymptotically. This relationship is approximated by a quadratic function with exponential fade, and reasons for the typical pattern are suggested. This pattern, which differs from that suggested by conventional theories of productivity progress, may be common for manufacturing plants in LDCs.     

Ricardian productivity differences and the gains from trade

This paper evaluates the role of sectoral heterogeneity in determining the gains from trade. We first show analytically that in the presence of sectoral Ricardian comparative advantage, a one-sector sufficient statistic formula that uses total trade volumes as a share of total absorption systematically understates the true gains from trade. Greater relative sectoral productivity differences lead to larger disparities between the gains implied by the one-sector formula and the true gains. Using data on overall and sectoral trade shares in a sample of 79 countries and 19 sectors we show that the multi-sector formula implies on average 30% higher gains from trade than the one-sector formula, and as much as 100% higher gains for some countries. We then set up and estimate a quantitative Ricardian–Heckscher–Ohlin model in which no version of the formula applies exactly, and compare a range of sufficient statistic formulas to the true gains in this model. Confirming the earlier results, formulas that do not take into account the sectoral heterogeneity understate the true gains from trade in the model by as much as two-thirds. The one-sector formulas understate the gains by more in countries with greater dispersion in sectoral productivities.