Intergenerational Transfer of Human Capital and Optimal Education Policy

We study the design of education policies (subsidies and public education) when parents' investment in education is motivated by warm‐glow altruism and determines the probability that a child has a high ability. The optimal subsidy is not necessarily positive. It is determined by two conflicting terms: a Pigouvian term (warm‐glow altruists do not properly account for the impact of education on future generations) and a “paternalistic” effect (the warm‐glow term may not be fully included in social welfare). Finally, total crowding out of private expenditure (for one of the types) by public education may be desirable.     

Human Capital, Heterogeneity and Estimated Degrees of Intergenerational Mobility

We study the parental investment model of intergenerational mobility, where heterogeneity in 'innate' earnings ability and parents' altruism rate is explicitly modelled. We show that heterogeneity increases the difficulty of detecting the existence of borrowing constrained families. Conversely, the presence of heterogeneity means that economic and linear statistical models of inheritance generate similar intergenerational data on consumption and earnings. We also suggest that nay cross-country differences in intergenerational earnings mobility are more readily interpreted according to the heterogeneity of inherited ability, rather than optimal family responses to country-specific institutions for accumulating human capital.     

略论企业家人力资本的形成

研究和探讨了一个逻辑链条:由于天赋、特定情境和投资的共同作用下,形成企业家的潜在能力,即作为企业家的人力资源,然后,在物质和精神的双重激励下,企业家潜在能力得到很大程度的发挥,使其转化为企业家现实能力,成为现实意义上的企业家人力资本,进而形成企业家行为,即成为现实意义上的企业家人力资本,并在特定的经营环境中,利用企业所拥有的资源禀赋与非人力资本共同形成经营绩效。通过对上述逻辑关系的论述,从实质上揭示出企业家人力资本的内涵。     

Human Capital and Overinvestment in R&D*

We introduce a negative effect of technological development on human capital accumulation in a growth model with endogenous innovation and accumulation of human capital. This implies a negative externality of R&D in human capital accumulation. Some calibration exercises suggest that this distortion may be sufficiently strong not only to offset the usual effects of spillovers and of returns to specialization but also to induce overinvestment in R&D.     

Human Capital Formation and the Decision Makers

Recent empirical work has identified the existence of cultural filters — demographically non-neutral processes whereby employers differentially screen applicants to evaluative attributes and characteristics - and analyzed how they affect differential employment success rates and wage levels. Women are filtered differently than men, and the outcome is disproportionately lower levels of employment and wages. The analysis explores the proposition that, for women to obtain long-term employment at reasonable wages, alternative strategies for workforce participation should be developed at the regional level to better match needs of employers - and the way they filter applicants for those needs, through investment in the target population.     

Intertemporal Labor Supply and Human Capital Accumulation*

We solve and estimate a dynamic model that allows agents to optimally choose their labor hours and consumption and that allows for both human capital accumulation and savings. Estimation results and simulation exercises indicate that the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is much higher than the conventional estimates and the downward bias comes from the omission of the human capital accumulation effect. The human capital accumulation effect renders the life‐cycle path of the shadow wage relatively flat, even though wages increase with age. Hence, a rather flat life‐cycle labor supply path can be reconciled with a high intertemporal elasticity of substitution.     

Optimal Taxation of Risky Human Capital*

In a two‐period life‐cycle model with ex ante homogeneous households, earnings risk, and a general earnings function, we derive the optimal linear labor tax rate and optimal linear education subsidies. The optimal income tax trades off social insurance against incentives to work. Education subsidies are not used for social insurance, but they are only targeted at offsetting the distortions of the labor tax and internalizing a fiscal externality. Both optimal education subsidies and tax rates increase if labor and education are more complementary, because education subsidies indirectly lower labor tax distortions by stimulating labor supply. Optimal education subsidies (taxes) also correct non‐tax distortions arising from missing insurance markets. Education subsidies internalize a positive (negative) fiscal externality if there is underinvestment (overinvestment) in education because of risk. Education policy unambiguously allows for more social insurance if education is a risky activity. However, if education hedges against labor‐market risk, optimal tax rates could be lower than in the case without education subsidies.     

The Intergenerational Incidence of Government Spending*

This paper analyzes the effect of an increase in government spending on the welfare of different generations in a dynamic general equilibrium model. The paper shows that the intergenerational incidence of government spending on a public good is determined not only by the welfare effects due to the public good and to financing the good but also by a welfare effect due to intertemporal substitution between private consumption when government spending is increased. The degree of substitutability between private consumption and public spending is shown to be a key determinant of this incidence.     

Migration under Asymmetric Information and Human Capital Formation

We study the migration of skilled workers, along with the skill acquisition incentives created by the prospect of migration. We trace out the dynamics of migration as foreign employers accumulate experience in deciphering the skill levels of individual migrants. It is found that migration by the relatively highly skilled is followed by return-migration from both tails of the migrant skill distribution; that the possibility of migration induces skill acquisition at home; that until the probability of discovery reaches its steady state equilibrium, migration consists of a sequence of moves characterized by a rising average skill level; and that migration of skilled workers can entail a home-country welfare gain.     

Intermarriage and the Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnic Identity and Human Capital for Mexican Americans

We investigate whether selective intermarriage and endogenous ethnic identification interact to hide some of the intergenerational progress achieved by the Mexican-origin population in the United States. In part, we do this by comparing an "objective" indicator of Mexican descent (based on the countries of birth of the respondent and his parents and grandparents) with the standard "subjective" measure of Mexican self-identification (based on the respondent's answer to the Hispanic origin question). For third-generation Mexican-American youth, we show that ethnic attrition is substantial and could produce significant downward bias in standard measures of attainment which rely on ethnic self-identification.     

Challenging the Human Capital Orthodoxy: The Education-Productivity Link Re-examined*

The human capital orthodoxy has it that education is an investment, not only for the individual undertaking it but also for society when it devotes scarce resources to it The return to society on that investment is seen mainly in terms of the enhanced productive contribution made by more-educated workers. The measure of that greater contribution most often used by economists is the extra earnings the more-educated on average receive This paper re-examines the available evidence of links between education and productivity (and between earnings and productivity) and finds it to be inconclusive.     

Wage Inequality and Human Capital Formation under Migration Possibilities

I examine the problem in the relationship between wage inequality and human capital formation under migration possibilities. Unlike previous analyses, I incorporate the education market and the education price into the analysis, and assume that workers bear the pecuniary cost for receiving education. Given such an assumption, migration possibilities do not necessarily increase education demand since the larger demand for education raises the education price and lowers the net return on education. By modelling an economy where workers in the home country (the labour‐sending country) comprise skilled and unskilled workers and they can migrate to the foreign country (the labour‐receiving country), I show that brain gain and brain drain occur simultaneously in the home country. In particular, if wage inequality is larger in the foreign country than in the home country, skilled workers experience brain gain and unskilled workers experience brain drain in the home country. On the other hand, if wage inequality is sufficiently larger in the home country, brain drain occurs in skilled workers and brain gain in unskilled workers.     

人力资本形成中的家庭纽带与社会互动

本文在经典的贝克尔人力资本模型中引入子女的主动参与行为,考察其与父母投资的互动。均衡分析表明,家庭互动可导致人力资本投资低于即期最优水平,但与专制家长的选择一致,这与贝克尔坏孩子定理的见解类似。在社会互动中,积极的同辈效应导致人力资本的代内传递。考察代际与代内力量的相互影响得到新的洞见:比如,家庭互动可放大同辈效应,并反映在社会乘数的调整上;内生的家庭互动也使得社会互动在实证上更加难以识别。     

The Intertemporal Causal Dynamics Between Fixed Capital Formation and Economic Growth in The Group-Of-Seven Countries *

The debate between De Long and Summers (1991, 1992) and Blomstrom, Lipsey and Zejan (1996) who reported conflicting results on the relationship between fixed capital formation and economic growth raised doubts on whether changes in a country's capital formation shares in GDP have an influence on its future growth rates. This paper addresses the issue again by examining the causal patterns between the share of fixed investment in GDP and the growth rate of per capital real GDP on an individual country basis, using time series on each of the group-of-seven countries. The empirical results suggest that the causal relationship between these variables may vary significantly across the major industrialized countries that presumably belong to the same growth group. Most importantly, no consistent evidence is found that causality is running in only one direction. Rather, causality between fixed investment and growth seems to have a country-specific nature and may run in either directions.     

Human Capital Accumulation In the Middle-Income Country and World Trade*

I construct a dynamic three-country model of trade and growth in which a worker determines how long he takes training. the path of human capital accumulation of a worker is analyzed. I consider the case in which per capita human capital grows in the middle-income country while it stagnates in the high-income and low-income countries. Effects of the middle-income country's growth are studied.     

Trade,Wage Gaps,and Specific Human Capital Accumulation*

We develop a new framework for the analysis of the impact of trade liberalization on the wage structure and on welfare. Our model focuses on the decision of workers to accumulate firm‐specific skills, by “on‐the‐job” training, knowing that this means their future wages will have to be negotiated, and that the outcome of negotiation will depend on the profitability prospect of firms operating in a new trading environment. We show that trade liberalization may reduce the welfare of a developing country because of its adverse effect on skill accumulation. We also explore the effects of trade liberalization on the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers.     

Labor Income Taxation,Human Capital,and Growth: The Role of Childcare*

In this paper, we examine the effects of labor income taxation on growth in an overlapping generations model in which schooling and childcare play a role in the production of human capital. We compare such effects with those obtained in a model in which only schooling matters for skill formation. We show that the omission of childcare from the technology of skill formation can bias the results related to the impact of labor income taxation on growth.     

资本形成路径与资本存量调整模型——基于中国转型时期的分析

本文综合考察了我国生产性资本的总量水平、形成路径及其调整机制。通过改进的方法所估算的资本存量在改革开放以来已经翻了不止两番 ,年平均增长率为7 3 6 % ,积累极为迅速。资本形成路径明显分为两个阶段 ,增量改革推动的配置效率改进使资本—产出比率在 1 994年之前持续下降 ,而近年来的资本形成过快是由于经济增长越来越倚重资本深化 ,必须通过全方位结构调整加快转型进程。本文进一步给出了我国转型期资本存量调整的供求决定框架 ,实证结果表明 ,需求导向的资本存量调整机制和投资行为已经在中国的转型经济中基本形成 ,产出水平与资本成本均为资本调整与投资需求的主要决定因素