GARY BECKER ON HUMAN CAPITAL

2015 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoram Weiss

Gary Becker’s work on “human capital” started around 1960. It was motivated by the rising interest in economic growth at the time. As stated in the introduction to the first edition of his book, Human Capital, “The origin of this study can be traced to the finding that a substantial growth in incomes in the US remains after the growth of physical capital and labor has been accounted for”. This unexplained residual suggested to several researchers that unmeasured features of the quality of the labor force must also be brought into consideration. While econometricians such as Edward Denison, Dale Jorgenson, and Zvi Griliches turned to seek better data that would reduce the scope of the unexplained residual, Becker constructed a detailed and original theory regarding the possible effects of a major unobserved and all inclusive factor, termed, human capital, would have on observed outcomes such as wages and education and their variation over time and among individual types. Most of the theoretical results reported in the three editions of Human Capital, 1964, 1975, and 1995 are already anticipated in a single early paper that was published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1962.

2011 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Leeuwen ◽  
P. Földvári

The objective of this paper is to analyse the role of both human and physical capital in economic growth in Hungary during the 20th century by extending the already available data on physical and human capital. Besides the standard measure for the volume of human capital, we develop a simple method to estimate the value of the human capital stock in Hungary between 1924 and 2006. While the volume index slowly grows over time, the value of human capital shows a decline during the late socialist period. Applying the value of human capital in a growth accounting analysis, we find that the Solow residual has no long-run effect on economic growth anymore.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-278
Author(s):  
Dewa Gede Sidan Raeskyesa ◽  
Erica Novianti Lukas

Digitalization has become relevant nowadays, not only because of the exposure of new technologies but also the consideration of its impact on the economy. In that regard, this study aims to analyze the effect of digitalization on economic growth. This study uses a descriptive analysis of the eight ASEAN middle-income countries from 1999 to 2014 as well as panel regression analysis with the dependent variable of GDP per capita growth and independent variables of physical capital, human capital, and ICT indicators. As a result, ICT indicators have a significant positive impact on economic growth, along with physical and human capital. The usage and intensity of ICT have a higher impact than access to ICT. Furthermore, human capital contributes the most among the other variables. We recommend the countries invest more in human capital to utilize ICT because it is the quality of human capital that matters to navigate the era of the digital economy.


Author(s):  
G. Irishin

This publication represents the materials of the regular academic seminar “The current problems of development” conducted by the Center of the problems of development and modernization within IMEMO. The attention of the key speakers and other seminar participants is focused on the comparison of the two BRICS countries – Brazil and Russia. The main emphasis is made on the analysis of the trends of social development. The point is that the quality of human capital determines the quality of economic growth, as well as the country's place in the world in the long run.


Author(s):  
Assaf Razin

The disunion of the Soviet Union and the destruction of communism in the USSR 1987-1991 triggered the recent emigration wave of Soviet Jews to various parts of the world, primarily to Israel. The professional, social, attitudinal and behavioral characteristics of the 1990s Jewish exodus cohort proved to be distinctive. Immigrants came mostly from urban areas, with advanced education systems. Immigration produced massive investments, both in residential structures and in non-residential capital. These investments were so substantial that they increased the capital to labor ratio and facilitated economic growth, aided by the remarkable human capital brought by the immigrants. The massive investments in physical capital and infrastructures were financed by capital imports as immigrants themselves fled their former homes almost penniless and credit constrained so that they hardly saved.


2015 ◽  
Vol 76 (13) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saiyidatul Saadah Ahmad Nizam ◽  
Rohanin Ahmad ◽  
Nur Arina Bazilah Aziz

There are pros and cons in hiring foreign labour on the economy. The influx of foreign labour is a common phenomenon, but when their involvement is unlimited it will be one serious issue. Malaysia is one of the developing countries where industrial and construction sectors are in need of labour and this has opened up opportunities for foreign labour. Their inflow into Malaysia is increasing every year and this has caused problems such as time-consuming construction due to low-skilled labour and crime problems caused by problematic labour. We augmented Mankiw-Romer-Weil model by isolating the foreign labour element in human capital to find the effect of the influx of foreign labour in Malaysian economic growth. The results from our model show that the employment of foreign labour increases the rate of human capital but decreases the rate of physical capital. Therefore, the level of the production function also decreases.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Essardi ◽  
Redouane Razzouk

The paper investigates the relationship between human capital and economic growth in Morocco during the period from 1965 to 2015. In order to test this relationship we estimated a growth function using firstly the Johansen multivariate cointegration test and the Granger causality test. Secondly, we used the method of the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) that takes into consideration the uncertainty related to the specification of the model studied. In the theoretical literature, the difficulty of measuring human capital is often stressed. In order to overcome this problem, we use four proxies of human capital: first, we employ the average years of schooling. Second, we use the index of the gap in life expectancy between Morocco and developed countries. Third, we integrate the qualitative aspects of education and health by constructing two composite indicators of human capital using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method.The main results of regression analysis confirm that in the specification of determinants of GDP per worker the average years of total schooling, the life expectancy index and the indicator of quality of health affect positively and significantly level of GDP per worker. However, in the specification of determinants of the growth of the GDP per worker, we found there is no proxy of human capital that affects significantly the growth of the GDP per worker.In addition, the results of Granger causality test show that only the indicator of quality of health that cause the GDP per worker. As well, these results show that the average years of total schooling and the indicator of quality of education cause the growth of GDP per worker. We suggest that the Moroccan authorities should make additional efforts to raise the level of quality of human capital especially in the health sector and increase the productivity of both public and private investment.


1977 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hossein G. Askari ◽  
John Thomas Cummings

In explaining the determinants of economic growth, economists have attempted to distinguish the relative contributions made by various inputs. Theodore Schultz concluded that improvements in human capital have made larger contributions to growth than increases in physical capital. E. F. Denison was even more specific in his pioneering studies of changes in real national income in the United States from 1927 to 1967, estimating that 23 percent of the growth could be explained by improvements in the educational level of the labor force and 20 percent by advances in technological and managerial knowledge. On the basis of such results, we may conclude that expenditures on education and training, public health, and general research contribute significantly to productivity in the industrialized nations by raising the quality of human capital; thus these outlays command a continuing return in the future.


2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (53) ◽  
pp. 5186-5200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qin Fan ◽  
Stephan J. Goetz ◽  
Jiaochen Liang

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