1,720,978 research outputs found
Education and training in a model of endogenous growth with creative wear and tear
No full textHow does the rate at which firms adopt new technologies affect the level of education and training of a country's workforce? What is then the mix of general education and technology-specific training that maximises the growth rate of an economy? We try to answer these questions by developing an endogenous growth model which focuses on privately financed general education and firm financed technology specific training in a setting where creative destruction renders technologies gradually obsolete. We reproduce some stylized facts regarding the technology-education-training relationship and we show how the optimum amount of time devoted to education and training is affected by the rate of technical change itself. In particular, we find that a faster arrival of new technologies shifts the private knowledge portfolio towards general human capital, less prone to creative destruction. We also find that households tend to under-invest in education, thus leading to lower growth rates than technically feasible, and higher training costs than absolutely necessary. This suggests that there is room for education policy reducing private education fees
A Simple Endogenous Growth Model With Asymmetric Employment Opportunities by Skill
Get PDFIn this paper we present the outlines of an endogenous growth model that focuses on the labour market- and skill-aspects of economic policy measures that may have an impact on technological change, and hence on the long term effectiveness of the policy measures concerned. The link between skills and technology is two-fold. On the one hand, new technology is high-skilled intensive, while on the other hand, process R&D may actively change the skill-mix of existing production technologies in the direction of a more intensive use of least-cost production factors/skills. Hence, we endogenise both product R&D and process R&D decisions. The product R&D generates new varieties of goods with a higher quality than older varieties. New and older varieties are assumed to be imperfect substitutes, so that new varieties only gradually replace older varieties. Process R&D in turn is geared towards downscaling the skill-requirements of the jobs associated with producing the different varieties of output. Because high-skilled labour has different uses (it is an input to final output production, but also into product and process R&D activities), whereas low-skilled labour is used only in final output generation, we can show how various alternative policy measures may affect R&D decisions, hence growth performance, but also the distribution of income between skills. We also show that the promotion of process R&D in particular has beneficial effects both for the employment perspectives of low-skilled workers and for growth in general. In simulation experiments with the model we show that the model, even in its present state, is able to mimic the stylised facts reported by Acemoglu (1997), who observed for the US that an increase in the supply of high-skilled labour does not necessarily imply a fall in the relative wage rate of high-skilled workers in the long run. We show that the ensuing increase in R&D activity creates its own demand for high-skilled workers when new products arrive on the market that are high-skilled intensive during the first phase of their life-cycle, as we assume it to be the case. This in turn invokes endogenous process R&D reactions that change the long term composition of the demand for labour by skill and by sector. In various experiments we found that the model generates an interesting interplay between both types of R&D that may have important consequences for the distribution of income between skills, for growth and more generally for the design of economic policy.economics of technology ;
ICT-Investment, Knowledge Accumulation and Endogenous Growth
Get PDFIn this paper we present an endogenous growth model based on Lucas (1988). We have extended the Lucas model by incorporating ICT-capital next to human capital. We take account of spillovers from ICT use in human capital formation to final output production. The effects on growth of these spillovers depend very much on whether they are external or completely internalised. We find that welfare is positively affected, the stronger these spillovers are, but also the more these spillovers are internalised. In addition, we find that in the case of limited internalised knowledge spillovers, we may face a multiple equilibria steady state growth situation, that has an inherent tendency to select the non-optimum (high growth) equilibrium in which all types of capital are ‘over accumulated’, including ICT-capital. This suggests that there is room for policy intervention here, because there exists an ‘optimum’ value of the knowledge-spillover parameter where both equilibria coincide and over accumulation does not happen.economics of technology ;
Endogenous Technical Change and Skill Biases in Employment Opportunities
Get PDFIn this paper we present a model that addresses the issue of the uneven distribution ofemployment opportunities over low- and high-skilled workers in a context of skill-biasedendogenous technical change. In our model, technical change consists in part of productinnovation. There is also process innovation to the extent that new products can be producedin two different ways, either using high-skilled workers, or using low-skilled workers afteradapting the production process of a new product. The model combines elements fromKrugman’s (1979) North-South framework, Vernon’s (1966) life-cycle hypothesis andAghion and Howitt’s (1992) work on creative destruction. We show that from a growth pointof view, lowering the relative wages for low-skilled workers does indeed reduceunemployment in the short run, as expected, but it also lowers growth. This is reminiscent ofKleinknecht’s (1998) contention that moderate wage growth makes for slow technical change.economics of technology ;
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Research in energy conversion technologies: Policy instruments and uncertainty
Get PDFIn this paper, the effects of uncertainty and of various policy instruments on the lengthand attractiveness of private research projects are studied. Research expenditure can beregained from quasi-rents that are earned by exploiting patents on the fruits of research.The accumulation of knowledge is modeled as a Poisson process. Within the context ofthe model, we show that firms shorten the duration of research projects when uncertaintyin knowledge accumulation increases or when, for example, the validity of patents isprolonged. The underlying mechanisms are due to Jensen™s Inequality and a real-optioneffect. Furthermore, we develop a smooth pasting condition for a class of Poissonprocesses.economics of technology ;
Random walks and non-linear paths in macroeconomic time series: Some evidence and implications
No full textThis paper investigates whether the inherent non-stationarity of macroeconomic time series is entirely due to a random walk or also to non-linear components. Applying the numerical tools of the analysis of dynamical systems to long time series for the United States, we reject the hypothesis that these series are generated solely by a linear stochastic process. Contrary to Real Business Cycle theory, that attributes the irregular behavior of the system to exogenous random factors, we maintain that the fluctuations in the time series cannot be explained only by means of external shocks plugged into linear autoregressive models. A dynamic and non-linear explanation may be useful for the double aim of describing and forecasting more accurately the evolution of the system. Linear macroeconomic models that find empirical verification on linear econometric analysis are therefore seriously called in question. On the contrary non-linear dynamical models may enable us to educe more complete information about economic phenomena from the same data sets used in the empirical analysis from Real Business Cycle Theory. We conclude that Real Business Cycle theory, and the unit root autoregressive models in general, are an inadequate device for a satisfactory understanding of economic time series. A theoretical approach grounded on non-linear metric methods, may however allow to identify non-linear structures that endogenously generate fluctuations in macroeconomic time series.economics of technology ;
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