STOCKS AND DEPRECIATION OF HUMAN CAPITAL: NEW EVIDENCE FROM A PRESENT-VALUE PERSPECTIVE

Responding to a perceived growing interest in human wealth estimates, this paper offers a framework for measuring the aggregate stock of human capital and then implements the procedure for the United States male population age 14 to 75. Unlike previous estimates of human wealth that are based upon historical or resource costs, these estimates measure the capital stock as the discounted resent-value of expected lifetime returns. In the estimation, returns are equated with earnings data from the 1970 U.S. Census 15 percent Public Use Sample for out-of-school males, adjusted for employment and survival probabilities, adjusted for an assumed exogenous growth in future earnings, and discounted at 7.5 percent.
We provide cross-sectional estimates of individual stocks of human capital by age and educational attainment, as well as expected lifetime wealth profiles for individuals by level of education. These individual profiles can be used to obtain direct estimates of age-specific depreciation which suggest human capital is subject to significant and prolonged appreciation before nearly straight-line depreciation begins around middle age. This finding is all the more significant since resource-cost estimates of human capital which must assume a depreciation pattern to obtain stocks have always imposed a much faster rate much sooner.
Finally, an aggregate estimate of the stock of human capital for all males is supplied and its sensitivity to the choice of the discount rate, tax laws, and expected exogenous growth is analyzed. This seemingly-conservative stock estimate is then compared to a much lower resource-cost estimate offered recently by John Kendrick. A discount rate over 20 percent would be needed to equate the two measures. In trying to reconcile the two figures, we raise some new questions about the validity of both approaches for human capital accounting.     

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.     

HUMAN CAPITAL ACCUMULATION,HOME PRODUCTION AND EQUILIBRIUM DYNAMICS*

In this paper, we construct a three‐sector endogenous growth model in which long‐run growth is propelled by human capital accumulation. We show that although the addition of a home sector to the standard two‐sector endogenous growth model preserves the well‐behaved balanced growth equilibrium properties, it generates new transitional dynamics around the balanced growth path. It is shown that, when there is a positive shock to physical capital, our model is more likely to exhibit paradoxical growth than are standard multisector endogenous growth models that exclude home production. Our analysis adds new results to those from the related literature on leisure.     

经济发展水平、产业结构与碳排放强度——中国省级面板数据分析

利用我国29个省市自治区1995—2007年的面板数据,本文分析了二氧化碳排放强度同经济发展水平及产业结构之间的关系。通过多项计量检验,比较了不同计量模型之后,笔者选取了能够修正面板异相关和自相关的可行的广义最小二乘法(FGLS)模型。研究表明,(1)碳强度同人均GDP之间存在"N"形关系。(2)第二产业比重同碳强度存在正相关关系,即第二产业比重越高,二氧化碳排放强度就越高。(3)对经济发展与碳排放之间关系进行的情景分析表明,如果产业结构不改变,没有实施另外的政策,经济增长速度本身难以引致碳排放强度的大幅下降,2020年二氧化碳排放强度下降40%~45%的目标难以实现。     

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS,GOVERNANCE, AND CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS

This article aims at identifying the determinants of government expenditures of developing countries by placing emphasis on the political institutions and governance variables, which have not been addressed so much in the previous literature. Using a panel data analysis for 97 developing countries from the period 1984 to 2004, this study finds evidence that controlling for economic, social, and demographical factors, political institutional and governance variables significantly influence the consumption expenditure in developing countries. Political institutional variables such as the type of political ruling and political power in the parliament positively influence consumption expenditure; on the contrary, governance variables such as corruption influence negatively. Furthermore, we find that autocratic governments with military ruling are not particularly accommodative toward consumption expenditures as the public spending significantly shrinks under military dictatorship compared with other forms of governance. In order to check consistency of our findings, we ran alternative specifications as well as conducted extreme bound tests. Our results largely survived these tests showing robustness of our findings. (JEL E01, E02, E61, E62, H2, H4, H5, H6, O11, O5)     

对外开放与TFP增长:基于中国省际面板数据的经验研究

本文运用DEA的方法,先测算出1986—2003年各省域经济的技术效率、技术进步和TFP增长,然后实证研究人力资本、国际进出口及FDI对三者的影响。结果表明,人力资本和出口对技术效率的提高有正向作用,进口负向影响技术效率,FDI的影响不显著。出口对技术进步和TFP增长有轻微的负向影响,进口对二者具有小幅度的正向促进作用;而人力资本、FDI对技术进步和TFP增长的正向影响要大于进口。综合来看,对外开放能够促进TFP的增长,但是其影响只有人力资本正向效果的十分之一。     

INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL MOBILITY AND TRADE POLITICS: CAPITAL FLOWS, POLITICAL COALITIONS, AND LOBBYING

Conventional wisdom holds that increasing international capital mobility reduces incentives for firms to lobby for trade protection. This paper argues that the effects of increased international capital mobility on the lobbying incentives of firms depend critically upon levels of inter-industry mobility. General-equilibrium analysis reveals that if capital is highly industry-specific, greater international mobility among some types of specific capital may increase lobbying incentives for owners of other specific factors and thereby intensify industry-based rent-seeking in trade politics. Evidence on levels of inward and outward investment in US manufacturing industries between 1982 and 1996, and on industry lobbying activities, indicate that these effects may be quite strong.     

EDUCATION,WORK, AND CRIME: A HUMAN CAPITAL APPROACH*

This article develops a model of crime in which human capital increases the opportunity cost of crime from foregone work and expected costs associated with incarceration. Older, more intelligent, and more educated adults should commit fewer street (unskilled) crimes. White collar crimes decline less (or increase) with age and education. Predictions for age–crime and education–crime relationships receive broad empirical support in self‐report data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and arrest data from the Uniform Crime Reports. The effects of education, training, and wage subsidies, as well as enforcement policies on criminal behavior are discussed.     

HUMAN CAPITAL AND CONVERGENCE: A PRODUCTION‐FRONTIER APPROACH*

Using nonparametric, production‐frontier methods, we decompose labor productivity growth into components attributable to technological change (shifts in the world production frontier), technological catch‐up (movements toward or away from the frontier), and physical and human capital accumulation (movements along the frontier). We find that (1) technological change is decidedly nonneutral, (2) productivity growth is driven primarily by physical and human capital accumulation, (3) the increased international dispersion of productivity is explained primarily by physical capital accumulation, and (4) international polarization (the shift from a unimodal to a bimodal distribution) is brought about primarily by efficiency changes (technological catch‐up).     

LABOR‐MARKET FRICTIONS,HUMAN CAPITAL ACCUMULATION,AND LONG‐RUN GROWTH: POSITIVE ANALYSIS AND POLICY EVALUATION*

We construct a search model with endogenous human capital and labor participation to study the growth effects of short‐run frictions and the effectiveness of human capital policies. Employment, learning effort, and output growth increase with more effective learning, better labor‐market matching, lower job separation, or less costly vacancy creation. Although output growth, employment, vacancy creation, and learning and search effort are most responsive to changes in a human capital policy that directly affects learning effort, such a policy need not be more beneficial for welfare. The effects of human capital policies become larger as the severity of labor‐market frictions rises.     

区域经济一体化、FDI与国际生产转移:一个自由资本模型

本文在继承了传统区域经济一体化理论的基础上,借助新经济地理学的特有研究方法和概念框架,构建一个带有区域化特征的四国八地区的自由资本模型,通过模拟方法分析了南北型、北北型以及南南型区域一体化组织对于国际直接投资的流动规模、流动方向、区位分布的差异化影响。证明了在存在二元经济结构的情况下,国际资本会在区域一体化组织内外、成员国之间以及成员内部等三个层面产生积聚现象,形成生产布局的空间不均衡,并就此提出本文的经济政策含义。     

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.     

ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND INCOME LEVELS ACROSS U.S. STATES: A SPATIAL PANEL DATA ANALYSIS

There is a large literature estimating the effect of economic freedom on economic growth or income levels. Most studies examine the relationship between economic freedom and growth or income levels for countries, while a few examine the relationship for U.S. states. Absent in the state‐level literature is consideration of the presence of spatial spillovers affecting the freedom‐income relationship. Neglecting to account for spatial autocorrelation can bias estimation results and therefore inferences drawn. We find evidence of a spatial pattern in real per‐capita gross state product (GSP) that affects nonspatial estimates of the freedom‐income relationship. Taking into account the direct and indirect effects of economic freedom on real per‐capita GSP, we find a 10% increase in economic freedom is associated with a 5% increase in real per‐capita GSP. (JEL E02, O47, R11)     

ALLOWING FOR JUMP MEASUREMENTS IN VOLATILITY: A HIGH‐FREQUENCY FINANCIAL DATA ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL STOCKS

Following recent advances in the non‐parametric realized volatility approach, we separately measure the discontinuous jump part of the quadratic variation process for individual stocks and incorporate it into heterogeneous autoregressive volatility models. We analyse the distributional properties of the jump measures vis‐à‐vis the corresponding realized volatility ones, and compare them to those of aggregate US market index series. We also demonstrate important gains in the forecasting accuracy of high‐frequency volatility models.     

BUSINESS CYCLES IN SMALL OPEN ECONOMIES: EVIDENCE FROM PANEL DATA BETWEEN 1900 AND 2013

Using a novel data set for 17 countries between 1900 and 2013, we characterize business cycles in both small developed and developing countries in a model with financial frictions and a common shock structure. We estimate the model jointly for these 17 countries using Bayesian methods. We find that financial frictions are an important feature for not only developing but also small developed countries. Furthermore, business cycles in both groups of countries are marked with trend productivity shocks. Common disturbances explain one third of the fluctuations in small open economies, especially during important worldwide phenomena.     

人口老龄化、养老金与国际资本流动： 影响机制与实证研究*

本文详细梳理了人口老龄化对国际资本流动的影响机制,并利用1993-2012年98个国家或地区的面板数据实证分析其相关关系,同时验证了以养老金为中介变量的影响机制。研究发现：人口老龄化主要通过资本-劳动比率和经常账户余额影响国际资本流动;不管是中高收入和中低收入国家,人口老龄化程度越高,资本越倾向流出;随着实行现收现付（PAYG）养老制度国家的深入改革,作为资金池的养老金规模逐渐扩大,其对外投资活动也越活跃。     

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。     

PUBLIC EDUCATION EXPENDITURES, HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT AND INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY: A TWO-STAGE EDUCATION MODEL

We show in this paper that, depending on the initial distribution of material wealth and that of individuals' abilities, economies converge in the long run towards different proportions of the skilled workforce and different levels of average wealth. We also show that the growth process raises net economic mobility, the long-run proportion of the skilled population and the long-run levels of wealth held by both rich and poor dynasties. Unless the income tax rate is too high, the increase in total public funds is associated, in the long run, with higher net mobility, a larger fraction of the skilled workers and higher levels of wealth of all the dynasties. In addition, the reallocation of public expenditures from basic to advanced education can result in lower mobility, a lower long-run size of the skilled workforce, and a lower long-run level of wealth held by rich dynasties, if the transfer of resources comes at the expense of excessively lowering the quality of education at the basic schooling level.