HUMAN CAPITAL FORMATION AND CONTINUOUS TRAINING: EVIDENCE FOR EU COUNTRIES

This paper links data on continuous training from the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) to information on skill levels and earnings from the EU KLEMS growth and productivity accounts, to examine the relative magnitudes of continuous workforce training versus human capital formation through the general education system in the European Union. The measurement methodology draws from the literature on measuring intangible investments by firms and sources of growth in an accounting framework. The results suggest that in the EU15 group of countries, intangible investments in continuous training represent just under 2 percent of GDP or about 35 percent of expenditure on general education. The share of GDP accounted for by training is less than a third as large in the new member states. A growth accounting method is employed to show that failure to account for continuous training leads to an underestimate of the impact of human capital on output growth in the EU.     

收入差距与公共财政政策:人力资本投资差异的形成与演变

人力资本投资的需求受到经济个体的时间偏好、生产能力与预期收益率等因素的影响。同时,收入差距和公共财政政策都会影响到人力资本投资供给曲线的变动。这造成了不同个体之间在人力资本投资上的差异,产生了他们之间的人力资本差距和收入差距。我国现行的公共财政政策已经成为收入差距快速增长的重要原因。     

HUMAN CAPITAL AND THE PROBABILITY OF DIVORCE

Concern about the high poverty rates experienced by children in female‐headed households has led to policies aimed at increasing these households' income. In this paper we present a model that analyses decisions made before and during marriage to invest in the human capital of parents and children. These decisions result from a variety of anticipated post‐divorce monetary transfers between spouses.     

HUMAN CAPITAL IN CHINA, 1985–2008

We estimated China's human capital stock from 1985 to 2008 based on the Jorgenson–Fraumeni (J–F) lifetime income framework. In order to accommodate the Chinese data and to capture human capital accumulation through both formal education and informal training, we modified the original J–F method by incorporating the Mincer model. We calculated total and per capita human capital stock for different population groups, and studied their trends and dynamics during the course of economic transition. We also constructed Divisia indexes of various orders to evaluate the contribution of different factors to the growth of human capital in China.     

中国主要省区物质资本与人力资本利用效率及投资取向

要实现区域的可持续发展,提高资源利用效率是一个根本性的问题。而作为主要生产资源的物质资本与人力资本的利用效率就具有更重要的意义。文章以经济增长理论为依据,利用生产函数分析了中国主要省区物质资本与人力资本对经济增长的贡献率,发现1990年代之后大多数省区的人力资本贡献率已超过了物质资本的贡献率,说明经济增长方式已发生了由外延式向内涵式的很好转变。进一步根据生产者均衡理论,计算了主要省区物质资本与人力资本的利用效率,发现大部分省区的利用效率没有达到最优状态,但1990年代以来利用效率在不断提高。在此基础上,计算了通过提高两项资本利用效率可带来的GDP增长潜力,发现当利用效率达到最高时GDP可增长近24%。由此给出了各省区物质资本与人力资本投资比例的调整方向。     

Redistribution with Unobservable Bequests: A Case for Taxing Capital Income

This paper addresses the question of the optimal taxation of labour and interest income in an overlapping generations model with two unobservable characteristics, ability and inheritance. We assume realistically that saving can only be taxed anonymously, whereas the tax on labour earnings can be individualized and made non-linear. In such a setting, we show that a withholding tax on interest income along with a non-linear tax on labour income is desirable. The role of interest income taxation is to indirectly tax inherited wealth.
JEL Classification D 63, H 2     

长三角经济区人力资本状况比较研究

对长三角经济区的上海、江苏、浙江三省市1990—2002年期间的人力资本存量进行了估算,比较分析了三省市的人力资本投资、投资效率、资本存量状况、空间结构及其特点。     

人力资本与企业组织结构:一个初步模型

20世纪90年代以来,企业组织结构扁平化趋势与企业内部人力资本水平提高趋势并存。人力资本水平的提高会导致组织结构的扁平化,并且有助于提高组织交流效率。企业人力资本水平的持续提高将进一步促使企业组织结构朝扁平化方向发展。     

城乡户籍与人力资本收益——基于广东省截面数据的观察

利用广东省各地区制造业企业劳动力情况的4443个样本截面调研数据,分析城乡户籍就业劳动力人力资本回报情况.研究表明,在社会主义市场经济改革进程中,行政权力和市场力量常常以不同的结合形态相互交织在一起,通过不同的方式改变着劳动力在户籍方面的结构特征和劳动力市场条件,从而决定着当前城乡户籍就业人力资本回报的基本格局及其变化路径.各地区户籍分组的人力资本收益率的变化显著存在差异,劳动力流动和劳动力培训在广东省的市场化收益体现得还不是很明显,尤其是劳动合同的签订情况是在劳动力市场合约谈判和履行中特别需要关注的一个问题.     

最低工资标准、人力资本扩张与企业成本加成

本文以人力资本扩张为切入点,构建了最低工资、人力资本扩张影响企业成本加成的理论框架,并使用中国1998-2013年284个地级市的工业企业数据进行了经验研究。结论显示:最低工资上调会显著抑制企业成本加成的提升,削弱了企业的市场势力,但该抑制效应在人力资本扩张的背景下得以缓解。同时本文通过进一步分组回归发现,最低工资标准与人力资本扩张对企业成本加成具有明显的异质性影响。因此,适度、稳定调整最低工资标准及推动人力资本质量的整体提升有助于保持企业成本加成能力及其动态竞争力。     

中国农村劳动力返乡:基于人力资本回报的理论和实证分析

本文借鉴刘易斯二元经济发展模型和托达罗模型,构造了农村劳动力两阶段迁移理论模型,理论分析表明,农村劳动力返乡是理性选择,原因是其人力资本回报在欠发达地区要高于发达地区。随后,本文利用2007年5月调查获得的中西部70个县2353位返乡农村劳动力数据,利用改进后明瑟尔收入模型,比较这个群体在发达地区与欠发达地区的人力资本回报率,验证了理论模型的分析结论。     

PRIVATE AND PUBLIC EDUCATION: HUMAN CAPITAL ACCUMULATION UNDER PARENTAL TEACHING*

This paper examines a simple overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation under both the public and private education regimes. Both young individuals and their parents allocate time to human capital accumulation. Under the public education regime, the government collects tax to finance expenditure for education resources. We show that there exists a level of tax which maximizes the speed of human capital accumulation because of parental teaching; and, if the government chooses tax rates adequately, human capital grows faster and welfare levels become higher under the public education regime than under the private.     

最低工资标准、人力资本扩张与企业成本加成*

本文以人力资本扩张为切入点，构建了最低工资、人力资本扩张影响企业成本加成的理论框架，并使用中国1998-2013年284个地级市的工业企业数据进行了经验研究。结论显示：最低工资上调会显著抑制企业成本加成的提升，削弱了企业的市场势力，但该抑制效应在人力资本扩张的背景下得以缓解。同时本文通过进一步分组回归发现，最低工资标准与人力资本扩张对企业成本加成具有明显的异质性影响。因此，适度、稳定调整最低工资标准及推动人力资本质量的整体提升有助于保持企业成本加成能力及其动态竞争力。     

Tuition Fees and the Dual Income Tax: The Optimality of the Nordic Income Tax System Reconsidered

Abstract. We examine the optimal tax and education policy in the case of a dual income tax. Incorporating an educational sector and endogenous capital taxation, we show that the results in Nielsen and Sørensen's study are vulnerable with respect to assumptions on the elasticity of unskilled labor supply. Tax progressivity results residually, whereas educational policy guarantees an optimal tax wedge on, but not necessarily efficiency in, educational investment. The less elastic are the unobservable educational investment and skilled labor (the latter relative to unskilled labor supply), and the more educational policy cares about the skilled labor supply, the more progressive the tax system will be. Education will be subsidized on a net basis if the complementarity effect on the skilled labor supply is strong and important; however, there is also an offsetting substitutability effect of the unskilled labor supply at play.     

PROGRESSIVITY AND REDISTRIBUTION IN NON‐REVENUE NEUTRAL TAX REFORMS: THE LEVEL AND DISTANCE EFFECTS

Kakwani and Reynolds–Smolensky indices are used in the literature to measure the progressivity and redistributive capacity of taxes. These indices may, however, show some limits when used to make normative assessments about non‐revenue neutral tax reforms. Two approaches have traditionally been taken to overcome this problem. The first of these consists of comparing after‐tax income distributions through generalized Lorenz (concentration) curves. The second approach is based on the decomposition of changes in the Reynolds–Smolensky index into changes in the average tax rate and variations in progressivity. Nonetheless, this decomposition between the average tax rate and progressivity may be further exploited to obtain some information that can be relevant to assess tax reforms. The main aim of this study is to draw up some indicators that can be useful to quantify the effects of non‐revenue neutral tax reforms. These indicators are used to investigate the last personal income tax reforms that have taken place in Spain.     

人口结构、人力资本结构与经济增长

经济发展过程伴随着人口结构的改变以及人力资本结构的改变,这种改变又影响着经济增长方式。本文刻画了这两种结构,考察工作家庭与退休家庭、体能资本与知识资本、通用性知识资本与专用性知识资本在经济增长过程中的作用。笔者发现,一个经济社会在其发展的早期阶段,主要是依靠体能资本和专用性知识资本促进经济数量上的增长和赶超,之后主要依靠通用性知识资本实现质量型经济增长。     

基于技能互补性的劳动力迁移与人力资本地区集中

由于劳动力的异质性,不同技能劳动力之间的合作和互补可以获得递增收益.客观存在的技能互补性导致了劳动力迁移与人力资本地区集中之间内生性的累积循环,这个循环的动态结果是劳动力持续向人力资本集中地区流动,人力资本存量的地区差异随之扩大.利用第五次全国人口普查数据进行的实证分析表明,迁移的人力资本地区集中效应的确存在.     

The impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship skills and motivation

This paper analyzes the impact of a leading entrepreneurship education program on college students’ entrepreneurship skills and motivation using an instrumental variables approach in a difference-in-differences framework. We exploit that the program was offered to students at one location of a school but not at another location of the same school. Location choice (and thereby treatment) is instrumented by the relative distance of locations to parents’ place of residence. The results show that the program does not have the intended effects: the effect on students’ self-assessed entrepreneurial skills is insignificant and the effect on the intention to become an entrepreneur is even negative.     

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE,HUMAN CAPITAL STRUCTURE,AND MULTIPLE GROWTH PATHS*

This paper presents a theoretical model to analyze the effects of technology change on growth rates of income and human capital in the uncertain environments of technology. The uncertainty comes from two sources: the possibility of a technology advance and the characteristics of new technologies. We set up an overlapping generations model in which young agents invest in both width and depth of human capital in order to adopt new technologies. The model develops explicitly the micro‐mechanism of the role of human capital in adopting new technologies as well as that of the process of human capital production in the uncertain environments. In our model, a higher level of width of human capital relative to the level of depth leads one country to a higher growth path. We also show that an economy can have different growth paths depending on the initial structure of human capital and the uncertainty about the nature of new technologies. In particular, new technologies with more uncertain characteristics may adversely affect human capital accumulation and income growth, leading the economy to a low growth trap.     

A Measure of the Shadow Economy in a Small Economy: Evidence from Household‐Level Expenditure Patterns

In this paper we measure the size of the shadow economy in North Cyprus by using micro‐econometric approaches and then calculate its implications on national accounts and fiscal balances. There is a relatively new strand of literature that focuses on comparing income–expenditure patterns of households to calculate the degree of underreporting of income levels by self‐employed and privately employed individuals, as compared with public servants. We use the 2008 Household Budget Survey of North Cyprus and analyze the differences in food consumption patterns among three kinds of employees: self‐employed, privately employed, and public. We found that self‐employed and privately employed individuals underreport their income levels by 20 percent and 13 percent, respectively, compared with publicly employed individuals. This has important implications for the aggregate economy in North Cyprus, where we estimate that the shadow economy created by underreporting is as much as 8.6 percent of GNP and 11.1 percent of total tax revenue.