INCOME INEQUALITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH WITH ALTRUISTIC BEQUESTS AND HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (S3) ◽  
pp. 331-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart McDonald ◽  
Jie Zhang

In this paper we explore how income inequality affects growth in a dynastic family model with bequests (physical capital) and investment in human capital for children. For tractability, we abstract from factor markets and focus on household production, which is prevalent in developing countries. We explore a joint distribution of bequests and human capital and track the evolution of income distribution across generations. We show that initial inequality has a positive indirect effect on average output growth by lowering the ratio of physical to human capital, besides its standard negative direct effect. If education is mainly privately (publicly) provided, then income inequality retards (promotes) growth outside the balanced growth path. On the balanced growth path, inequality always hinders growth.

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina Büttner

Abstract Recent R&D growth models without strong scale effects imply that long-run growth rates depend only on parameters that are usually taken to be exogenous. However, integrating human capital accumulation into models of this type, Arnold (2002) demonstrates that subsidizing education accelerates growth. The present paper addresses welfare issues in Arnold’s model. The main theoretical finding of the paper is that a system of subsidies that implements the optimal balanced growth path as a decentralized equilibrium includes zero subsidies to education, while R&D activity should be either subsidized or taxed. To shed further light on the latter result, the model is calibrated and it turns out that along the balanced growth path, the decentralized economy underinvests in R&D, i.e. R&D activities should be subsidized.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 1837-1856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Del Rey ◽  
Miguel-Angel Lopez-Garcia

In overlapping-generations economies with life-cycle saving and exogenous growth, the laissez-faire equilibrium balanced growth path fails in general to achieve optimality, but is dynamically efficient if the marginal product of physical capital is greater than the growth rate of the economy. In this paper, we accommodate the concept of dynamic (in)efficiency in an overlapping-generations economy with endogenous growth due to human capital accumulation. We show that the condition that the marginal product of physical capital is larger than the growth rate of the economy is necessary but no longer sufficient for the dynamic efficiency of the laissez-faire equilibrium balanced growth path.


2017 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 1740005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Tao ◽  
Xiangjun Wu

The competitive economy, over a long time scale, would produce a large number of general equilibria, each of which can be regarded as a possible microstate of this economy. Then by the principle of maximum entropy, we can obtain the most probable macrostate which in the case of perfect competition involving a single industry will lead to a Solow-type aggregate production function. By this aggregate production function, one can make clear how labors match firms on the balanced growth path. Here, we prove that when the capital stock of a society arrives at the golden-rule level on the balanced growth path, the social employment will reach the best level at which every firm on average employs an optimal amount of workers.


2014 ◽  
Vol 104 (4) ◽  
pp. 1149-1171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boyan Jovanovic

This paper models growth via on-the-job learning when firms and workers are heterogeneous. It is an overlapping generations model in which young agents match with the old. More efficient assignments lead to faster long-run growth, more inequality, and less turnover in the distribution of human capital. Constant-growth paths are characterized for general functional forms and then, for the Cobb-Douglas case, the transition dynamics are solved analytically when the skill of the young is log-normally distributed and the initial human capital of the old generation is also log-normal. Growth and inequality move together on the transition to the balanced growth path. ( JEL D83, J24, J31, J41)


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 501-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Reis

Abstract In a Ramsey model of optimal taxation, if human capital investment can be observed separately from consumption, it is optimal not to distort human or physical capital accumulation in the long run, and only labour income taxes should be used. However, in reality the government can’t always distinguish between investment in human capital and pure consumption, so a tax on labour or consumption will necessarily tax human capital. We find that when investment in human capital is unobservable, the optimal policy is to tax human capital at a positive rate, even in the long run. Whether physical capital should be taxed or not depends on its degree of complementarity with human capital versus labour.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Neves Sequeira

There is a family of models with physical and human capital and R&D for which convergence properties have been discussed [Lutz G. Arnold, European Economic Review 44, 1599–1605 (2000); Manuel Gómez, Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics 9(1), Article 5 (2005)]. However, spillovers in R&D have been ignored in this context. We introduce spillovers in this model and derive the steady-state and stability properties. This new feature implies that the model is characterized by a system of four differential equations. A unique balanced growth path, along with a two-dimensional stable manifold, is obtained under simple and reasonable conditions. Transition is oscillatory toward the steady state for plausible values of parameters. We discovered that these features are due to the presence of the R&D spillovers externality in the decentralized equilibrium.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Bucci ◽  
Xavier Raurich

Abstract Using a growth model with physical capital accumulation, human capital investment and horizontal R&D activity, this paper proposes an alternative channel through which an increase in the population growth rate may yield a non-uniform (i.e., a positive, negative, or neutral) impact on the long-run growth rate of per-capita GDP, as available empirical evidence seems mostly to suggest. The proposed mechanism relies on the nature of the process of economic growth (whether it is fully or semi-endogenous), and the peculiar engine(s) driving economic growth (human capital investment, R&D activity, or both). The model also explains why in the long term the association between population growth and productivity growth may ultimately be negative when R&D is an engine of economic growth.


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorsten Pampel

Abstract We show for a class of basic growth models that convergence in ratios does not imply the pathwise convergence to the corresponding balanced growth path in the state space. We derive conditions on parameters and on the elasticity of the savings function for convergence or divergence and apply our results to the Solow model, an augmented Solow model as well as to an optimal growth model. An implication for the convergence debate is that two economies that differ only in the initial capital stock and converge in per capita terms might diverge to infinity in absolute terms.


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