Capital deepening

Abstract: Thls paper considers the prospects for constructing a neoclassical theory of growth and international trade that is consistent with some of the main features of economic development. Three models are considered and compared to evidence: a model emphasizing physical capital accumulation and technological change, a model emphasizing human capital accumulation through schooling, and a model emphasizing specialized human capital accumulation through learning-by-doing.

Abstract: This paper examines whether the Solow growth model is consistent with the international variation in the standard of living. It shows that an augmented Solow model that includes accumulation of human as well as physical capital provides an excellent description of the cross-country data. The paper also examines the implications of the Solow model for convergence in standards of living, that is, for whether poor countries tend to grow faster than rich countries. The evidence indicates that, holding population growth and capital accumulation constant, countries converge at about the rate the augmented Solow model predicts. This paper takes Robert Solow seriously. In his classic 1956 article Solow proposed that we begin the study of economic growth by assuming a standard neoclassical production function with decreasing returns to capital. Taking the rates of saving and population growth as exogenous, he showed that these two vari- ables determine the steady-state level of income per capita. Be- cause saving and population growth rates vary across countries, different countries reach different steady states. Solow's model gives simple testable predictions about how these variables influ- ence the steady-state level of income. The higher the rate of saving, the richer the country. The higher the rate of population growth, the poorer the country. This paper argues that the predictions of the Solow model are, to a first approximation, consistent with the evidence. Examining recently available data for a large set of countries, we find that saving and population growth affect income in the directions that Solow predicted. Moreover, more than half of the cross-country variation in income per capita can be explained by these two variables alone. Yet all is not right for the Solow model. Although the model correctly predicts the directions of the effects of saving and

Abstract: "Human Capital" is Becker's study of how investment in an individual's education and training is similar to business investments in equipment. Becker looks at the effects of investment in education on earnings and employment, and shows how his theory measures the incentive for such investment, as well as the costs and returns from college and high school education. Another part of the study explores the relation between age and earnings. This edition includes four new chapters, covering recent ideas about human capital, fertility and economic growth, the division of labour, economic considerations within the family, and inequality in earnings.

Abstract: Written in the classical tradition this essay attempts to determine what can be made of the classical framework in solving problems of distribution accumulation and growth first in a closed and then in an open economy. The purpose is to bring the framework of individual writers up to date in the light of modern knowledge and to see if it helps facilitate an understanding of the contemporary problems of large areas of the earth. The 1st task is to elaborate the assumption of an unlimited labor supply and by establishing that it is a useful assumption. The objective is merely to elaborate a different framework for those countries which the neoclassical (and Keynesian) assumptions do not fit. In the 1st place an unlimited supply of labor may be said to exist in those countries where population is so large relative to capital and natural resources that there are large sectors of the economy where the marginal productivity of labor is negligible zero or even negative. Several writers have drawn attention to the existence of such "disguised" unemployment in the agricultural sector. If unlimited labor is available while capital is scarce it is known from the Law of Variable Proportions that the capital should not be spread thinly over all the labor. Only so much labor should be used with capital as will reduce the marginal productivity of labor to zero. The key to the process of economic expansion is the use that is made of the capitalist surplus. In so far as this is reinvested in creating new capital the capital sector expands taking more people into capitalist employment out of the subsistence sector. The surplus is then larger still and capital formation is still greater and so the process continues until the labor surplus disappears. The central problem in the theory of economic development is to understand the process by which a community which was previously saving and investing 4 or 5% of its national income or less converts itself into an economy where voluntary saving is running at about 12-15% of national income or more. This is the crucial problem because the central fact of economic development is rapid capital accumulation (including knowledge and skills with capital). Much of the plausible explanation is that people save more because they have more to save. The model used here states that if unlimited supplies of labor are available at a constant real wage and if any part of profits is reinvested in productive capacity profits will grow continuously relative to the national income and capital formation will also grow relatively to the national income. As capitalists also create capital as a result of a net increase in the supply of money particularly bank credit it is necessary to take account of this. Governments affect the process of capital accumulation in many ways and not least by the inflations which they experience. The expansion of the capitalist sector may be stopped because the price of subsistence goods rises or because the price is not falling as fast as subsistence productivity per head is rising or because capitalist workers raise their subsistence standards.

Abstract: Traditional growth theory emphasizes the incentives for capital accumulation rather than technological progress. Innovation is treated as an exogenous process or a by-product of investment in machinery and equipment. Grossman and Helpman develop a unique approach in which innovation is viewed as a deliberate outgrowth of investments in industrial research by forward-looking, profit-seeking agents.