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Author: Daniela Vidart
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 166
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This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first two chapters revisit the link between electrification and the rise in female labor force participation (LFP) during the first half of the 20th century in the United States. Jointly, these two chapters provide theoretical and empirical evidence that one key and previously overlooked way through which electrification led to a rise in female LFP was by increasing market opportunities for skilled women. In the first chapter, I formalize my theory in an overlapping generations model with endogenous human capital accumulation. I find that my mechanism explains one-third of the rise in female LFP during the rollout of electricity in the United States from 1880 to 1960, and helps explain the slow change in female home production hours and work hours during this period. In the second chapter, I present micro evidence that supports my theory using newly digitized data on the electrification of the United States in the 1910s. Consistent with the theory, I find that higher levels of educational attainment increased the response of young women's employment to electrification in this period, particularly for those with post-secondary education, and that electrification raised the educational attainment of subsequent generations of women. In the third chapter, in work joint with Remy Levin, we present evidence for a new channel linking the low rates of individual risk-taking ubiquitous in developing countries, to lifetime experiences of macroeconomic growth and volatility. We combine two panel data sets from Indonesia and Mexico, containing elicited measures of risk aversion, with state-level real GDP growth time series capturing their lifetime macroeconomic experiences. We find that living through periods of increasing macroeconomic volatility increases measured risk aversion, while living through periods of increasing average macroeconomic growth decreases measured risk aversion. However, the aforementioned effects of macroeconomic volatility are 2-4 times larger than those of average macroeconomic growth. These effects are robust to controlling for changes in income, wealth, savings, and exposure to violence and natural disasters. Moreover, these effects are economically significant, translating into changes in outcomes that closely depend on risk attitudes, like borrowing, migration and crop choice.
Author: Daniela Vidart
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 166
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Book Description
This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first two chapters revisit the link between electrification and the rise in female labor force participation (LFP) during the first half of the 20th century in the United States. Jointly, these two chapters provide theoretical and empirical evidence that one key and previously overlooked way through which electrification led to a rise in female LFP was by increasing market opportunities for skilled women. In the first chapter, I formalize my theory in an overlapping generations model with endogenous human capital accumulation. I find that my mechanism explains one-third of the rise in female LFP during the rollout of electricity in the United States from 1880 to 1960, and helps explain the slow change in female home production hours and work hours during this period. In the second chapter, I present micro evidence that supports my theory using newly digitized data on the electrification of the United States in the 1910s. Consistent with the theory, I find that higher levels of educational attainment increased the response of young women's employment to electrification in this period, particularly for those with post-secondary education, and that electrification raised the educational attainment of subsequent generations of women. In the third chapter, in work joint with Remy Levin, we present evidence for a new channel linking the low rates of individual risk-taking ubiquitous in developing countries, to lifetime experiences of macroeconomic growth and volatility. We combine two panel data sets from Indonesia and Mexico, containing elicited measures of risk aversion, with state-level real GDP growth time series capturing their lifetime macroeconomic experiences. We find that living through periods of increasing macroeconomic volatility increases measured risk aversion, while living through periods of increasing average macroeconomic growth decreases measured risk aversion. However, the aforementioned effects of macroeconomic volatility are 2-4 times larger than those of average macroeconomic growth. These effects are robust to controlling for changes in income, wealth, savings, and exposure to violence and natural disasters. Moreover, these effects are economically significant, translating into changes in outcomes that closely depend on risk attitudes, like borrowing, migration and crop choice.
Author: Wolfgang Keller
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 29
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Author: Hyunseok Kim (Ph.D.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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In this dissertation, I explore human capital accumulation and its implication for economic development. Chapter 1 and 2 focused on the mechanism behind the sustained economic growth of South Korea, which was a war-devastated, aid-recipient country two generations ago but now sells semiconductors and automobiles to the world. I ask how the country shifted its technology to capital-intensive production technique. These chapters consider educational policy change that led to an increase in college graduate. Chapter 3 studies the mechanism behind the divergence in employment between temporary and permanent workers in South Korea. The chapter considers the labor policy change that protects temporary employment. For each chapter, I construct a plant-level panel dataset from a series of censuses and connect it with an industry-level input-output table to consider a spillover effect. Chapter 1 studies how an increase in college graduates has affected the technology shift in South Korea. The analysis is based on the concept of complementarity in technology adoption - i.e., the idea that more adopters increase a marginal adopter's gain. I consider skilled labor as an adoption good needed for technology adoption. If complementarity exists in technology adoption, there could be multiple equilibria, possibly leading to undesirable results from coordination failure. I develop a theoretical framework which predicts that an increase in the adoption good of skilled labor could overcome coordination failure and promote a technology shift. Based on plant-level panel data from 1982-1996, I find that accumulation of more outside human capital, or more adopters, (i) benefits marginal adopting firm's profit and investment, and (ii) promotes the firm's technology shift by increasing the productivity of capital while decreasing that of unskilled workers. This paper contributes to the literature on aggregate growth theory by verifying that outside human capital accumulation and its spillover effect contribute to economic growth. Chapter 2 builds on Chapter 1, where human capital is considered an adoption good, by studying the specific role of human capital. Specifically, I explore whether research and development (R&D) is the channel through which human capital accumulation leads to a technology shift. The analysis is based on previous literature indicating that R&D generates new knowledge and the absorption of outside knowledge. The latter role of R&D, absorptive capacity, matches the concept of complementarity in chapter 1. Based on plant-level panel data, I find that (i) human capital accumulation due to the educational policy change promotes R&D in the manufacturing industries; (ii) the effect of R&D spillovers is increasing in a firm's own R&D, a finding which validates the concepts of absorptive capacity and complementarity; and (iii) more outside R&D promotes a firm's technology shift toward capital-intensity. This paper contributes to the literature on endogenous growth, which so far has focused on R&D spillover's effects on total factor productivity rather than on technology shift, by connecting absorptive capacity with complementarity in technology adoption. Chapter 3 investigates another dimension of human capital: permanent and temporary workers. The labor market in South Korea has witnessed a divergence in employment between permanent and temporary workers. The proportion of permanent workers, which had been stable between 50 and 60 percent for two decades in the 1990s and 2000s, has increased recently to above 70 percent. I point out that legislation requiring firms that hire a worker on a temporary basis for more than two years to offer them permanent status serves as a trigger for the divergence. This legislation limits the advantages (to firms) of flexibility in hiring and capacity for screening new workers. Hence, in a competitive labor market firms expect that other firms are more likely to hire permanent rather than temporary workers. If complementarity exists in permanent employment, the legislation serves as a Big Push to make the divergence happen. Based on plant-level panel data covering 2011-2019, I find that (i) flexibility and screening effect of temporary workers are overwhelmed by human capital effect, and (ii) complementarity in permanent employment holds after the temporary employment protection legislation. This paper deepens the understanding of the recent labor market phenomena in South Korea by adopting the concept of complementarity and a Big Push.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Author: Alexandros T. Mourmouras
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Author: Guan Lin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 145
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Human capital has long been recognized as a crucial determinant of economic development. The main contribution of my dissertation is to both theoretically and empirically demonstrate the idea that the composition (different types of education) of human capital determines technological progress and affects long-run economic growth. As compared to traditional human capital and growth literature, it emphasizes the composition effect of human capital, rather than the level effect, on economic development. It provides a new perspective in characterizing the stages of economic development along the growth path. Optimal human capital composition benefits not only lesser developed countries who usually lack educational resources but also developed countries with limited population growth potential. The first chapter, titled ``Education, Technology, Human Capital Composition and Economic Development'', develops a framework of endogenous educational decisions and technological progress to explore the human capital composition and its effects on economic growth. In this model, growth is driven by technological advancement, which depends on the human capital composition. Individuals can choose from different types of workers: unskilled workers, generalists or specialists. Both generalists and specialists, through technological progress, are able to enhance growth. The model considers the role of technology stock, coordination cost, education cost and worker's innate ability on the human capital composition and economic growth. The main result shows the improvement in the composition of human capital promotes economic growth in most economic stages. However, this positive effect tapers off as the economy reaches complete specialization. This provides a possible explanation for the convergence of economic growth to zero asymptotically in the long run. I extend the argument into an open economy framework in the second chapter, titled ``Migration Effects on Home Country's Composition of Human Capital and Economic Development''. This chapter examines migration effects on domestic composition of human capital and economic growth. The net effect of migration depends on two facets. On one hand, the possibility of migration provides incentives for workers to invest in education and consequently increases the fraction of skilled workers in home country's human capital composition. On the other hand, increased population of skilled emigrants hinders the accumulation of human capital. A sufficient condition for beneficial migration is derived: if the ex ante domestic fraction of unskilled worker is relatively high, allowing the home country to achieve faster economic growth with migration. The last chapter, titled ``The Effect of Tertiary Education Composition on Economic Growth'', differentiates types of tertiary education by ISECD levels and empirically investigates their effects on economic growth. I use panel data on a group of 77 countries for the period 1998-2011. In dynamic panel data estimation, a potential endogeneity bias could arise due to the inclusion of lagged dependent variables. Several methods are applied to overcome the issue, such as Anderson-Hsiao estimator, the Difference Generalized Method of Moments estimator and the System Generalized Method of Moments estimator. The study shows a significantly positive relationship between short-cycle tertiary education and real GDP per capita for both developed and developing countries. However, undergraduate and graduate education only positively correlate to economic growth in developed countries. The empirical results are informative for developed countries as well as developing countries. Understanding the contribution of tertiary education in different levels allows them to effectively allocate resources and appropriately integrate it in growth policies.
Author: Th van de Klundert
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 378
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Book Description
These 13 essays demonstrate the development of growth theory since the 1960s. The sequence of chapters reveals the shifts in focus which has occurred since the first formal growth models of the 1940s and 1950s, illustrating the different theories which have led to the contemporary model.
Author: Chong-En Bai
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262025348
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Essays on the effects of information technology on the economy.
Author: John A. James
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226391984
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
Following the approach of R. M. Hartwell, the influential historian of the British Industrial Revolution, these essays explore the cultural contexts and institutional constraints that have shaped growth and development over the past two centuries. Focusing on two central questions - why the whole world is not developed, and why Britain was the first industrial nation - Capitalism in Context offers new perspectives on why economic development took place where and when it did. These studies will appeal to economists, historians, and social scientists alike for their wide-ranging treatments of economic development and cultural change.
Author: Jonas Ljungberg
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230523811
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 253
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Book Description
One theme of this volume is whether the complementarity between technology and human capital is a recent phenomenon, or whether it can be traced through history. Different approaches to human capital as well as technology are applied, and besides historical surveys are total factor productivity and patent data employed. The studies deal with the Iberian peninsula, Scandinavia, and Canada, countries displaying different patterns in the international development.
