Human capital and income inequality in India: is there a non-linear and asymmetric relationship?

The article attempts to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between human capital and income inequality in India in a non-linear and asymmetric framework. To capture both long-run and short-run asymmetries, we have employed the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag approach using the relevant data from 1970 to 2016. Findings of the article suggest that education expansion acts as a major factor in reducing prevailing high income inequality, that is an increase in average years of schooling results in more equal distribution of income. In contrast, high economic growth, inflation and trade openness create unequal distribution of income. The asymmetric causality test results indicate that there is unidirectional causality running from female human capital, economic growth and inflation to income inequality. From a policy perspective, we suggest that education expansion should be used as a powerful tool to mitigate income inequality by emphasizing the quality of education. At the same time, policies geared towards social benefits, inclusive education, training for unskilled workers and price stability should be encouraged to attain fair income distribution in India.     

人力资本不平等与全要素生产率增长关系

本文基于1990-2007年间我国29个省份数据,运用较为前沿的面板协整技术,实证检验了人力资本不平等与全要素生产率增长之间的长期稳定关系。研究表明:(1)近些年来,中国的教育扩张有效地促进了人力资本积累和人力资本不平等程度的改善;(2)人力资本不平等对全要素生产率增长具有显著的负向影响。因此,在强调人力资本积累、加大教育投入的同时,应关注教育资源分配的公平性,减少人力资本不平等,以促进全要素生产率的进一步增长。     

Accumulation and distribution of human capital: the interaction between individual and aggregate variables

The paper analyses the joint evolution of accumulation and distribution of human capital in an OLG framework. Dynamics arises from the interplay between human capital distribution and individual variables—inherited human capital and inborn ability. Such interaction drives individual investment in human capital and accumulation in the economy. According to initial distribution the model provides different dynamical behaviours linking growth and inequality; in general economies with a more equal initial distribution grow faster but other cases are possible. Moreover, since the model provides an endogenous threshold for investing in human capital, the distribution is characterised by multi-modality.     

Will democracy engender equality?

Summary. Many suppose that democracy is an ethos which requires, inter alia, a degree of economic equality among citizens. In contrast, we conceive of democracy as ruthless electoral competition between groups of citizens with different interests, who are organized into parties. We inquire whether such competition, which we assume to be concerned with distributive matters, will engender economic equality in the long run. Society is modeled as OLG, and each generation competes politically over educational finance and tax policy; the policy space is infinite dimensional. A political equilibrium concept is proposed which determines the membership of two parties endogenously, and their proposed policies in political competition. One party wins the election (stochastically). This process determines the evolution of the distribution of human capital. We show that, whether the limit distribution of human capital is an equal one depends upon the nature of intra-party bargaining and the degree of inequality in the original distribution.Received: 3 December 2002, Revised: 6 February 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D72, H2.This article reports on a longer project, to be published as Democracy, Education, and Equality (Cambridge University Press). Here, I motivate the problem, explain one of the models, and state one of the principal results. Proofs of theorems are omitted, but will be available in the aforementioned monograph. Many individuals have provided valuable comments and help on this project, including Ignacio Ortuño-Ortin, Herbert Scarf, Roger E. Howe, Karine Van der Straeten, John Geanokoplos, and Colin Stewart. I also acknowledge the useful comments of an anonymous referee for this journal. A preliminary version of this work was delivered as the Graz-Schumpeter Lectures at the University of Graz in May 2003, and I am grateful to the Graz Schumpeter Society for their hospitality and comments.The general topic of this article has been, I believe, of keen interest to Birgit Grodal, a dear friend and staunch supporter of my unconventional work in economic theory since I embarked upon that path in the late 1970s. I will always be deeply grateful for her friendship, support and encouragement, and I am honored to contribute this paper to her festschrift.     

A tale of two Ginis in the US, 1921–2012

Following a methodology by Jantzen and Volpert (2012), we use IRS Adjusted Gross Income data for the US (1921–2012) to estimate two Gini indices representing inequality at the bottom and the top of the income distribution, and to calculate the overall Gini as a function of the parameters underlying the two indices. A steady increase in the overall Gini since the Second World War actually hides two different periods of distributional changes. First, the increase in inequality from the mid 1940s to the late 1970s is driven by rising inequality at the bottom of the income distribution that more than offsets a decrease in inequality at the top. The implication is that middle-income earners gained relative to high-incomes, and especially relative to low-income earners. Second, the rise in the Gini after 1981 is driven by rising inequality at the top. Third, top-driven inequality follows a U-shaped trajectory consistent with Piketty and Saez (2003, 2006). Fourth, the welfare effects of the different distributional changes behind increasing inequality can be evaluated in light of the Lorenz-dominance criterion by Atkinson (1970): we argue that the rise in inequality since 1981 is much more likely to be associated with a social welfare loss net of compensating growth.     

城乡居民的收入流动性研究

本文根据基尼系数的排序关系推导了收入流动性的一种测度方式,并以我国城乡居民住户调查数据为基础描述了我国城乡居民收入流动性的变化特征.本文的结论表明,我国城镇居民收入流动性表现出明显的下降倾向,而农村居民的收入流动性则略有上升.     

新疆城市居民收入不平等现状分析

本文采用基尼系数及其分解公式对新疆2003年城市居民收入调查的2828个样本数据进行分析，根据新疆的地理特征将基尼系数按南疆与北疆进行分解计算，并按收入来源对基尼系数进行集中度分解分析，结果表明新疆的收入不平等状况并不严重，南疆的收入差距大于北疆，工资收入和转移收入是收入差距增大的主要原因。     

贸易开放与发展中国家收入差距扩大——基于中国的理论与实证分析

文章将人力资本结构因素纳入到贸易开放与发展中国家内部收入差距关系的分析框架之中,通过理论推理和实证检验考察了贸易开放、人力资本结构对发展中国家收入差距扩大的影响机制、条件与力度.研究表明,贸易开放对发展中国家收入差距扩大的影响不但与其所带来的技术进步类型有关,还与该国的产业发展战略和人力资本(人才供给)结构密切相关.就我国而言,人力资本结构升级速度慢于贸易产品结构升级速度,是贸易尤其是出口导致收入差距扩大的重要条件.     

Induced heterogeneity in trust experiments

Several non-experimental studies claim that heterogeneity among individuals reduces trust. A few experimental studies have examined the effects of naturally-occurring differences among subjects on trusting behavior, and in contrast, most have not supported these claims. We adopt a novel approach by inducing heterogeneity among subjects in a canonical trust experiment. We accomplish this by varying the show-up payments given to subjects for participating in the experiment. We find that this induced inequality does not consistently affect first- or second-mover behavior in the classic trust game in the manner predicted by either previous theoretical work or empirical studies of survey-based measures of trust. Further, the effect of inequality on trust, in terms of both sign and significance, depends on whether show-up payments are awarded publicly or privately. JEL Classification C9, Z13     

论"人力资本产权"分歧的化解及其与智力资本的关系

人力资本、智力资本理论，本质上是“虚拟资本”问题，是对这些过去被看作是费用或成本的东西进行“资本化定价”。我国经济学界“人力资本产权”问题的分歧，关键在于没有从虚拟资本这个角度来思考“人力资本”这类问题。特别是由于在研究企业产权理论时，没有引进另一类虚拟资本——“智力资本”的概念。     

Development outcomes,resource abundance,and the transmission through inequality

The paper studies the effect of resource abundance on human development in light of two complementary hypotheses: (i) resource abundance increases the inequality of income distribution within a country and (ii) higher income inequality reduces human development. The estimation of a system of equations provides support to both hypotheses. In addition, results suggest that resource abundance might also affect human development by reducing the quality of institutions. However, while statistically significant, this effect is quantitatively small. Finally, there is evidence of a strong, negative direct effect of resource abundance on human development after controlling for inequality, institutional quality, and the level of per-capita income.     

Inequity aversion and trustees' reciprocity in the trust game

The introduction of inequity concerns into the Trust Game gives rise to complementary concepts of conditional trustworthiness and unconditional untrustworthiness. When the inequity concern is not accounted for, unconditional untrustworthiness is overestimated. The high proportion of trustees adopting the equal division behavioural norm suggests that an unequal distribution of show-up fees may deter trustors from placing trust, and may eventually reduce the incentive to cooperate for both players. It also follows that increases in income inequality can explain declines in self-reported trust in high-income countries.     

刍议人力资本推动下的经济增长——以北京为例

21世纪我们迎来知识经济时代,国际竞争日趋激烈,人才正成为最重要的资源,成为国家竞争的核心内容.北京作为世界第一人口大国的首都,拥有国内最丰富的人力资本,目前其人力资本状况及对经济的影响值得关注.主要分为四部分对上述问题进行讨论.第一部分使用基尼系数测算北京人力资本状况;第二部分估计人力资本对经济增长的作用;第三部分分析人力资本对产业结构的影响;第四部分从人力资本的角度为可持续发展的经济增长提供适当的建议方案.     

A solution to the Lucas–Uzawa model with increasing returns to scale: Note

Chilarescu [2008, An analytical solutions for a model of endogenous growth, Economic Modelling.] claims that he determines a solution path to the Lucas–Uzawa model with increasing returns to scale. However, the path is not a closed-form since it depends on the initial consumption and the initial time for goods production, that are unknown. Moreover, the production function is nonconcave and then the first order conditions and the transversality conditions are not sufficient for the optimality. This note converts the model to a problem in which the Hamiltonian is available and derives a fully-closed form solution.     

Human capital depletion, human capital formation, and migration: a blessing or a “curse”?

We specify conditions under which a strictly positive probability of employment in a foreign country raises the level of human capital formed by optimizing workers in the home country. While some workers migrate, “taking along” more human capital than if they had migrated without factoring in the possibility of migration (a form of brain drain), other workers stay at home with more human capital than they would have formed in the absence of the possibility of migration (a form of brain gain).