Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth (original) (raw)

Human Capital, Demographics and Growth across the US states 1920-1990

1996

Abstract This paper finds robust evidence that age structure matters for subsequent growth in per capita income across the US states 1920-1990. The age groups 25-65 year are positively related to subsequent per capita income growth. Another conclusion is that the average years of schooling affects subsequent per capita income growth positively when age structure is controlled for.

Education and the National Wealth of the United States*

Review of Income and Wealth, 1986

and by the Sloan Foundation through its grant to the Center for the Study of Organizational Innovation. We thank Paul Taubman and Janice Madden for their helpful comments. 'See for example Munnell (1974), Barro (1978), Darby (1979), and most recently the revision of Leimer and Lesnoy (1982). Louis Esposito (1978) provides a comprehensive review of the debate. '1n the case of schooling, this essentially is the economy's cost of operating its schools plus the opportunity cost of the time of students. 3Actually Hines et al. compute the social rate of return to education by combining benefits and costs of 1959-60 schooling in a calculation of internal rate of return. The same technique is applied to the 1970 Census of Population by Albert Niemi (1975). 4Recent work by Jorgenson and Pachon (1981) improves on these measures somewhat by using methods that account for economic growth to measure lifetime labor incomes.- ,

Education and economic growth

Harvard University, 2000

Since the late 1980s, much of the attention of macroeconomists has focused on long-term issues, notably the effects of government policies on the long-term rate of economic growth. This emphasis reflects the recognition that the difference between prosperity and poverty for a country depends on how fast it grows over the long term.

Population Growth and Educational Policies: An Economic Perspective

Population and Development Review, 1976

A micro-economic model of popu atiom growth is presented to assess the relationship between education and fertility. Om the basis of population growth evidence, the author presents the following opinions: (1) the potential of education as a policy instrument to influence family size is great but ignorance of the mechanisms through which education lay af!ect fertility is also large; (2) economic policies_that firectly influence wifes wages couple's contraceptive behavior, and the early health ana nutrition of children may be a more effective and quicker means of reducing family size than support of adult education; and (3) the trade-off that parents appear to make between the number of children they want and the lavestments they make in_each child may be the key to middleand iong-term population policy in developing nations. The author concludes that the scarcity of economic resources makes continued research on policy instruments, like education, essential. A bibliography is included in the document. (Author/DB) *

A Classical Model of Education, Growth, and Distribution

Macroeconomic Dynamics

We develop a classical macroeconomic model to examine the growth and distributional consequences of education. Contrary to the received wisdom, we show that human capital accumulation is not necessarily growth-inducing and inequality-reducing. Expansive education policies may foster growth and reduce earning inequalities between workers, but only by transferring income from workers to capitalists. Further, the overall effect of an increase in education depends on the actual characteristics of the educational system and on the nature of labor market relations. Although the primary aim of the paper is theoretical, we argue that the model identifies some causal mechanisms that can contribute to shed light on recent stylized facts on growth, distribution, and education for the USA.

Schooling and Economic Growth: What Have We Learned?

2014

This paper explains why different studies present widely-varying estimates of the effect of increased schooling on national income. It shows that when correctly-interpreted, these studies support the hypothesis that a one-year increase in average schooling attainment raises national income directly by about 10% and indirectly by about 19%. The increases in national income are larger than the aggregate effect of higher workers’ salaries, because schooling has external effects on national income. Due to the rising cost of additional years of schooling, the national return on investment in schooling is much lower in more educated countries. The estimated real national return on investment in schooling in 2005 ranged from over 40% in the least educated countries to 8.5% in the most educated countries. Average levels of schooling and average test scores at ages 9 to 15 generally rise together, so either measure of human capital can explain differences in national income or growth rates across countries. Since the productivity of physical capital depends on the level of human capital, in a global financial market, the growth in human capital largely determines the growth in physical capital and in national income.

The role of education in economic growtht: theory, history, and current returns.

2012

Evidence is presented that economic development requires both human capital and physical capital and that historically human capital has been the limiting factor in national development. Education has direct and indirect effects on national income. Evidence is presented that the indirect effects are very large and larger than the direct effects in poor countries. The indirect effects are not very large and are smaller than the direct effects in rich countries. Investment in education has diminishing returns. Macro returns exceed 50 percent in poorly-educated countries and 12 percent in highly-educated countries.

Education and Growth: Where All the Education Went

We investigate why the economics literature often finds a negative relationship between increased schooling and GDP growth over short periods. We show that increases in GDP in 98 countries during five-year intervals are correlated with the increases in adults´ average schooling during the prior 40 years. We find that an additional year of schooling of the work force raised GDP by 7% on average during 1980-2005, but its initial effect on GDP was much smaller. The delayed effect of increased schooling on national productivity explains why recent increases in schooling cannot explain near-term increases in GDP.

Investment in education and US economic growth

The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 1992

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