On the optimality of public capital for long-run economic growth: evidence from panel data

The role of public capital in economic growth is examined using data from the Penn World Tables and other sources on a large number of countries. Drawing on intertemporal optimization, the theoretical framework nests the exogenous (Solow) and endogenous types of growth and is data-consistent. It is found that public capital makes a significant contribution to growth. The actual level of investment on public capital is suboptimal. Growth in recent decades can be characterized as ‘endogenous’ with little sign of convergence. There is evidence of a growth slow-down between the 1970s and 1980s. Human capital also significantly enhances growth.     

Natural capital, subjective well-being, and the new welfare economics of sustainability: Some evidence from cross-country regressions

The measurement of natural capital and its management during the economic development process are important aspects of the capital approach to sustainable development. However, the assessment of social welfare in terms of genuine savings (or changes in total wealth per capita) is arguably too limited. This paper tries to make a case for the incorporation of subjective well-being measures in debates about sustainable development by exploring the macro-level relationship between subjective well-being and natural capital in a cross-country setting. It is tested whether natural capital per capita is correlated with subjective well-being in a sample of fifty-eight developed and developing countries, using natural capital data from the World Bank's Millennium Capital Assessment. Bivariate regressions indicate that it is. When multiple regression models are estimated that include (a) major country-level determinants of subjective well-being (GNI per capita, social capital, income distribution, unemployment, inflation), and (b) regional dummy variables for ex-Soviet Union and Latin American countries, the positive correlation remains. The role of data outliers is carefully explored, and the sensitivity of the results to the use of alternative subjective well-being measures (i.e. life satisfaction, happiness, and a combined life satisfaction and happiness index) is investigated. This does not change the nature of the results. The findings arguably strengthen the case for a ‘new welfare economics of sustainability’ that takes subjective well-being measures into account.     

Optimal accumulation in an endogenous growth setting with human capital

This paper considers a three-overlapping-generations model of endogenous growth wherein human capital is the engine of growth. It first contrasts the laissez-faire and the optimal solutions. Three possible accumulation regimes are distinguished. Then it discusses a standard set of tax-transfer instruments that allow for decentralization of the social optimum. Within the limits of our model, the rationale for the standard pattern of intergenerational transfers (the working-aged financing the education of the young and the pension of the old) is seriously questioned. On pure efficiency grounds, the case for generous public pensions is rather weak.     

Culture and human capital in a two-sector endogenous growth model

Recent literature in the field of cultural economics highlights a possible inversion in the usual causality relation (from economic growth to culture) and points out that culture may represent an important driver of economic growth. By viewing culture in line with Throsby’s (2001) definition of cultural capital (i.e., an asset of tangible and intangible cultural expressions), in this article we analyze one possible channel through which culture may positively affect economic growth, namely the existence of a relationship of complementarity between cultural and human capital investments. Using a two-sector endogenous growth model, we find that in the long run a higher growth rate of real per-capita income can be attained the more cultural and human capital investments are complementary for each other in the process leading to agents’ skill acquisition. We also analyze the conditions under which an increase of the cultural capital share in total GDP can be conducive to a rise of real per-capita income.     

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.     

Facts and distortions in an endogenous growth model with physical capital, human capital and varieties

This article studies a model with physical and human capital accumulation and varieties. The model includes several distortions: duplication effects, spillovers, creative destruction, surplus appropriability, and an erosion effect. We show that the duplication effect in R&D is essential to make the model replicate several stylized facts linked with R&D. We evaluate the distance to the optimal solution, comparing the strength of each distortion.     

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.     

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.     

Economic complexity,human capital and economic growth: empirical research based on cross-country panel data

Economic complexity reflects a country’s production capabilities and plays an important role in economic growth. This article measures the economic complexity of 210 countries using the method of reflections, and investigates the impact of economic complexity and human capital on economic growth. The measurement results show that there are significant differences regarding the level of complexity among countries. High-income economies have higher complexity than low- and middle-income economies. The empirical findings demonstrate that economic complexity and different levels of human capital have positive effects on long- and short-term growth. A positive interaction effect on economic growth exists between economic complexity and human capital. In addition, secondary education as a proxy for human capital has a relatively greater positive direct effect and a much stronger interactive effect with complexity on economic growth. In addition, the magnitude of the interaction effect between economic complexity and human capital on long- and short-term growth increases as the revealed comparative advantage threshold grows.     

Duplication externalities in an endogenous growth model with physical capital,human capital,and R&D

This paper devises an endogenous growth model with physical capital, human capital and product variety. Differently to previous works, innovation is subject to externalities associated to the duplication of research effort, as well as to R&D spillovers. We provide conditions for the existence of a unique feasible steady-state equilibrium with positive long-run growth. For appropriate parameter values, the transitional dynamics of the model is represented by a two-dimensional stable manifold. Numerical simulations show that the incorporation of duplication externalities significantly increases the ability of the model to fit the observed data.     

Venture capital,innovation, and growth: evidence from Chinese metropolitan data

Using panel data from 282 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2015, we estimate the impact of venture capital (VC) on innovation, employment, and payroll in metropolitan areas. Controlling for endogeneity, VC investments are significantly positively related to metropolitan innovation, employment, and payroll in a fixed effects panel regression and dynamic GMM estimation. Using the number of IPOs (Initial public offerings) in the city as an instrumental variable to again control for endogeneity, VC remains significant. Our results show that VC is significantly contributing to the metropolitan economy as a whole by supporting innovation, creating jobs, and generating wealth in the local cities.     

School composition effects in Denmark: quantile regression evidence from PISA 2000

Data from the first wave of the OECD PISA study are combined with register data for Denmark to estimate the effect of the socioeconomic mix of schools on students’ test scores. A major disadvantage of the PISA design for the analysis of school composition effects is the small students-per-school samples. Adding family background data from administrative registers for all same-aged schoolmates of the PISA students helps overcome this. To compensate for endogeneity in the school composition variable, the results are conditioned on a rich set of family and school variables from the PISA data. Quantile regression results suggest differential school composition effects across the conditional reading score distribution, with students in the lower quantiles achieving the largest test score gains. Mathematics results suggest that high- and low-ability students benefit equally from attending schools with a better student intake, and most results for science are only marginally significant. These results imply that mixing students of different home backgrounds could improve equity of achievement for both reading and mathematics; however, the average skill level would improve only for reading literacy. In mathematics, mixing students would not raise average outcomes, because the detrimental effect on students in the higher quantiles would offset positive effects on those in the lower quantiles. I thank Amelie Constant, Bernd Fitzenberger, Eskil Heinesen, Peter Jensen, Craig Riddell, Michael Rosholm, Nina Smith, Robert Wright and participants at the ESPE and EALE 2003 conferences and at AKF seminars, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. Financial support provided by the Danish Social Science Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.     

On the effects of human capital and R&D policies in an endogenous growth model

We introduce an external effect of existing technologies in human capital accumulation in an endogenous growth model and describe its steady-state and transition. We numerically solve the model to compare the quantitative effects of R&D policy with the quantitative effects of human capital policy in wealth and welfare. Although R&D subsidies have now an overall positive effect on growth, wealth and welfare, the calibration exercise shows that for plausible values for the parameters, human capital policy is simultaneously the most income and welfare-improving and the less expensive to the government.     

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.     

The role of innovation in venture capital: empirical evidence from European Union and EFTA countries

This article investigates the effects of innovation attempts on the venture capital and investment activity in the cases of the selected European Union plus European Free Trade Agreement countries using annual panel data and by controlling for real income growth and business sophistication. Our findings suggest that innovation has positively significant effects on venture capital in the cases without opt-out countries (United Kingdom and Denmark); however, these effects become negative in the cases with opt-out countries. Policy implications are provided in the conclusion section of this study.     

Gender differences in productivity rewards: the role of human capital

In this paper, we evaluate the gender wage gap component due to differences in characteristics’ rewards in Italy. The main focus is on the relationship between human capital characteristics and gender differences in rewards. We propose a methodology that combines the quantile regression analysis with non-parametric procedures for the estimation of the probability density functions of reward differentials in order to evaluate the evolution of the gap due to human capital characteristics. The analysis is carried out on Italian data taken from the latest available cross-section of the European Community Household Panel (2001). Our study suggests that education can be a good productivity signal and helps reduce the range of the gap; furthermore, highly educated women experience lesser gender-based pay differences as the length of the employment relationship increases.     

Optimal social security in a dynastic model with human capital externalities,fertility and endogenous growth

In this paper we investigate the optimal scale of pay-as-you-go social security in a dynastic family model with human capital externalities, fertility and endogenous growth. Human capital externalities reduce the return to human capital investment and hence lead to under-investment in human capital and over-reproduction of the population. If the taste for the number of children is sufficiently weak relative to the taste for the welfare of children, social security can be welfare enhancing by reducing fertility and raising human capital investment per child.     

The transferability of human capital: some empirical evidence for West Germany

One of the most important topics in the current debate on immigration policy is whether receiving countries should make immigration conditional upon the achievement of formal education by the would-be immigrant in the source country. The answer to this question depends, among other factors, on the transferability of schooling and professional education from the sending to the receiving region. The paper uses German household data of 1978, 1982 and 1989 to evaluate to what extent formal education acquired by the main immigrant groups (Italians, Yugoslavs, Turks) in their countries of origin leads to earnings advantages in Germany. Consistent with earlier research, an assimilation effect is found. The results also show that schooling and professional education lead to earnings advantages. However, income differences between the three immigrant groups can only partially be explained by differences in schooling and professional education. It is found that nonobservable characteristics such as motivation, talent and the dynamics of the migratory chain also play a major role. The results indicate that Germany and other European receiving countries could, in theory, increase their welfare by integrating qualitative restrictions along educational characteristics in their immigration policies. The size of the increase, however, would be limited because of the importance of nonobservable characteristics and declining transferability of human capital as the source composition of immigrants shifts towards less developed countries.     

Inflation and economic growth in Latin America: Some panel time-series evidence

In this paper we investigate the role of macroeconomic performance, mainly in terms of rates of inflation, in determining economic growth in four Latin American countries which suffered hyperinflationary bursts in the 1980s and early 1990s, but that also differ in terms of development levels. The data set covers the period between 1970 and 2007, and the empirical results, based on panel time-series data and analysis, confirm the anecdotal evidence which suggests that inflation has had a detrimental effect to growth in the region. All in all, we highlight the fact that excessive inflation has clearly offset the Mundell–Tobin effect and consequently the high costs that inflation has had on economic activity in the region.     

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.