Human capital accumulation, income distribution, and economic growth: a demand-led analytical framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-336
Author(s):  
Gilberto Tadeu Lima ◽  
Laura Carvalho ◽  
Gustavo Pereira Serra

This paper incorporates human capital accumulation through provision of universal public education by a balanced-budget government to a demand-driven analytical framework of functional distribution and growth of income. Human capital accumulation positively impacts on workers’ productivity in production and their bargaining power in wage negotiations. In the long-run equilibrium, a rise in the tax rate (which also denotes the share of output spent in human capital formation) lowers the pre- and after-tax wage share and physical capital utilization, and thus raises (lowers) the output growth rate when the latter is profit-led (wage-led). The impact of a higher tax rate on the employment rate (which also measures human capital utilization) in the long-run equilibrium is negative (ambiguous) when output growth is wage-led (profit-led). In any case, the supply of higher-skilled workers does not automatically create its own demand.

Author(s):  
Zhidi Zhang ◽  
Jianqing Ruan

Is there a relationship between the frequency of regional natural disasters and long-term human-capital accumulation? This article investigates the long-run causality between natural calamities and human-capital accumulation with macro and micro data. Empirical cross-county analysis demonstrates that higher frequencies of natural calamities are correlated with higher rates of human-capital accumulation. Specifically, on the basis of empirical data of the fifth census in 2000 and China’s Labor-Force Dynamics Survey in 2012, this paper exploits the two databases to infer that the high disaster frequency in the years of 1500–2000 was likely to increase regional human-capital accumulation on district level. High natural-calamity frequency reduces the expected rate of returning to physical capital, which also serves to increase human-capital. Thus, experiencing with natural disasters would influence human’s preference to human-capital investment instead of physical capital.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreu Arenas ◽  
Jean Hindriks

Abstract We analyse the impact of unequal school opportunity on intergenerational income mobility and human capital accumulation. Building upon the classical Becker–Tomes–Solon framework, we use a regime-switch model allowing for differences in income transmission across groups. We find that unequal school opportunity raises average human capital because of assortative matching. However, because income dispersion tends to be higher at the top, in most cases unequal school opportunity decreases intergenerational mobility. Calibrating the model to the USA, simulations suggest that school equalisation and desegregation policies have positive effects on mobility at relatively small efficiency costs.


2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 659-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Fertig ◽  
Christoph M. Schmidt ◽  
Mathias G. Sinning

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-80
Author(s):  
Boris Alekhin

This study examines the contribution of human capital accumulation to regional economic growth using panel data for 82 subjects of the Russian Federation over 2002–2019. This paper aims to test the hypothesis that in the long-run equilibrium there exists a connection between economic growth and human capital accumulation in the regions of Russia. From the point of view of econometrics, it would mean that we should refute the hypothesis that there is no cointegration of time series describing the aforementioned variables. General theoretical framework was drawn from the neoclassical growth theory, and panel data econometrics suggested the appropriate empirical methodology. Pooled mean group and fully modified least squares estimators were applied to an autoregressive distributed lags model based on the Solow model. The results indicate that accumulation of human capital has a positive and statistically significant long-term impact on the rate of growth of per capita income and that these variables are cointegrated. Such calculations allow us to make the following conclusions: per capita GRP is cointegrated with physical and human capital on the regional level. The cointegrating equation ‘explained’ more than 90% of per capita GRP variance. Human capital accumulation had a significant positive impact on per capita GRP growth in the long run; such impact exceeded the impact of physical capital accumulation. The positive impact of human capital accumulation on per capita GRP growth surpassed the negative elasticity of growth GRP by the amount of resource excluded from the real sector to provide support to students and maintain the regional education system. The paces at which regional economies were heading towards the steady state differed which is an evidence that there exist an incredible manifold of ways and means for regions to adjust to disbalancies


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 504-533

This study investigates the nexus between domestic resource mobilization using aggregated and disaggregated taxes, and human capital accumulation as measured by the index of human capital and total factor productivity. The study explores panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag. We further explore the linear and nonlinear effects of taxes on human capital accumulation. The results from the scatterplots show that taxes at aggregate and disaggregated levels positively correlated with the two measures of human capital. On the linear analysis, the impact of aggregated and disaggregated taxes is largely negative under the index of human capital but largely positive under the second measure in the short-run. However, the long-run results indicate that aggregate and disaggregated taxes significantly amplify human capital accumulation. On nonlinearity, there is no presence of human capital laffer curve (HCLC) in the short-run under the two measures of human capital. However, there is presence of HCLC in the long-run. The net effects results show that some taxes (such as indirect taxes, taxes on goods and services) are distortionary in improving the level of human capital development while some taxes (such as total tax, direct tax, taxes on income, profit, and gains) can distort human capital development in the SSA region.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
André Berardo Coelho ◽  
Nelson Leitão Paes

This paper uses the Zon and Muysken (2001) model to investigate the effect of increasing the retirement age on health care production, human capital accumulation, and economic growth. All three sectors are interrelated, since the overall level of health affects both workers and the accumulation of human capital, while a higher level of human capital is related to better quality of health. And, finally, health and human capital affect the output of the economy. From the economic growth point of view the results seem to be positive. Increasing labor availability raises productivity in the health sector, which ultimately improves labor productivity, resulting in increased capital accumulation and economic growth. On the other hand, it is estimated a reduction in the propensity to consume and a smaller portion of the labor force allocated in the health sector.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-45
Author(s):  
Spyridon Boikos

This paper investigates the possible non-linear effect of corruption on human capital accumulation through two channels. The first channel is through the effect of corruption on the public expenditure on education and the second channel is through the effect of corruption on the physical capital investment. Initially, we construct an endogenous two-sector growth model with human capital accumulation and we try to explore the impact of corruption on the allocation of public expenditure and therefore on the distribution of human capital across sectors. Then by using a semi-parametric method, we confirm the presence of non-linearities between human capital and corruption.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Anthony Orji ◽  
Jonathan E. Ogbuabor ◽  
Chikaodinaka Iwuagwu ◽  
Onyinye I. Anthony-Orji

This article empirically analysed the impact of human capital development on output growth in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. The study employed time series data from 1985 to 2018 and adopted the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model bounds test to ascertain the existence of a long-run relationship between human capital development and output growth. The findings of this study revealed that there exists a long-run relationship between human capital development and output growth in Nigeria. Human capital development components such as public expenditure on health and labour force showed significant positive contribution to output growth in Nigeria, while public expenditure on education showed a reverse relationship. Gross capital formation (proxy for stock of physical capital) also showed positive contribution to growth. The study therefore recommended that there is need to re-evaluate the expenditure made on public education to ensure that it is well utilised to fund critical infrastructure that will enhance learning, capacity building and human development, which will ultimately contribute to output growth. Policies should also be enacted to support improvements in the other components of human developments’ proxies in order to contribute optimally to output growth continuously.


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.


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