Economic Growth, Longevity, and the Epidemiological Transition

This paper integrates investments in health to a standard growth model where physical and human capital investments are the combined engines of growth. It shows the existence of two distinct health regimes separated by an 'Epidemiological Transition'. The various patterns of the transition identified in the epidemiological literature can be mapped into the model. The model also leads to the important hypothesis that the epidemiological transition may induce an economy to switch to a modern growth regime.

Liquidity Constraint and Child Labor In India: Is Market Really Incapable Of Eradicating It From Wage-Labor Households?

One way to measure the lower steady state equilibrium outcome in human capital development is the incidence of child labor in most of the developing countries. With the help of Indian household level data in an overlapping generation framework, we show that production loans under credit rationing are not optimally extended towards firms because of issues with adverse selection. More stringent rationing in the credit market creates a distortion in the labor market by increasing adult wage rate and the demand for child labor. Lower availability of funds under stringent rationing coupled with increased demand for loans induces the high risk firms to replace adult labor by child labor. A switch of regime from credit rationing to revelation regime can clear such imperfections in the labor market. The equilibrium higher wage rate elevates the household consumption to a significantly higher level than the subsistence under credit rationing and therefore higher level of human capital development is assured leading to no supply of child labor.

Endogenous Growth in the Presence of Informal Credit Markets: A Comparative Analysis Between Credit Rationing and Self-Revelation Regimes

This paper examines whether the presence of informal credit markets reduces the cost of credit rationing in terms of growth. In a dynamic general equilibrium framework, we assume that firms are heterogenous with different degrees of risk and households invest in human capital development. With the help of Indian household level data we show that the informal market reduces the cost of rationing by increasing the growth rate by 0.7 percent. This higher growth rate, in the presence of an informal sector, is due to the ability of the informal market to separate the high risk from the low risk firms thanks to better information. But even after such improvement we do not get the optimum outcome. The findings, based on our second question, suggest that the revelation of firms' type, based on incentive compatible pricing, can lead to almost 2 percent higher growth rate as compared to the credit rationing regime with informal sector.

Evaluation of obesity interventions targeting adults in the occupational setting

The study of obesity and its causes has evolved into one of the most important public health issues in the United States (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2007). Obesity is linked to several chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2008b) and the public health concern resides in the present morbidity and mortality associated with obesity and related conditions (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, 1998). Furthermore, obesity and its related conditions present economic challenges to employers in terms of medical health care, sick leave, short-term disability and long-term disability benefits utilized by employees (Østbye, Dement, and Krause, 2007). Recently, articles covering intervention programs targeting obesity in the occupational setting have surfaced in the body of scientific literature. The increased interest in this area stems from the fact that employees in the United States spend more time in the work environment than many industrialized nations, including Japan and most of Western Europe (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006). Moreover, scientific literature supports the idea of investing in healthy human capital to promote productivity and output from employees (Berger, Howell, Nicholson, & Sharda, 2003). The time spent in the work environment, the business need for healthy employees, and the public health concern create an opportunity for planning, implementation and analysis of interventions for effectiveness. This paper aims to identify those intervention programs that focus on the occupational setting related to obesity, to analyze the overall effect of diet, physical fitness and behavioral change interventions targeting overweight and obesity in the occupational setting, and to evaluate the details and effectiveness of components, such as, intervention setting, target participant group, content, industry and length of follow up. Once strengths and weaknesses of the interventions are evaluated, ideas will be suggested for implementation in the future.^

La teoría de la transición demográfica en Argentina : interpretaciones y derivaciones (1930-1950)

El trabajo tiene por objetivo mostrar cómo los círculos dirigentes de Argentina interpretaron la teoría de la transición demográfica presente en el país en los años 1930-1950 y cuales fueron las derivaciones hacia el tema del capital humano. Este concepto está atravesado por análisis sociológicos, sicológicos, biológicos de una gran vaguedad y sin rigurosos análisis sobre el desarrollo económico, partiendo de analogías no demostradas. Por consiguiente, el primer tema del trabajo se refiere a las fuentes que inspiraron a la dirigencia argentina en la asimilación de la teoría. Seguidamente, se señalan las relaciones y las analogías expuestas entre la situación demográfica argentina y la de los países industrializados de Europa. El tercer aspecto se centra en las derivaciones sociológicas, psicológicas, biológicas que extraen de la relación economía-población. Con lo cual, en forma tímida y sin claridad conceptual, se introducen en el tema del capital humano en el desarrollo económico del país.

La «empresa» como modo de subjetivación

A partir de nuestra investigación con ejecutivos de corporaciones transnacionales en Brasil, analizamos la difusión de la forma empresa y argumentamos que está en formación un ethos a partir de un conjunto de valores que derivan de conceptos formulados por teorías económicas y difundidos por doctrinas de la administración. Así, nociones como capital humano, emprendedorismo, innovación pasan a orientar la conducta de las personas y el neoliberalismo se impone como racionalidad gubernamental: una lógica normativa que define en la actualidad una cierta mentalidad y estilo de vida. Proponemos pensar, desde el último Foucault, a la empresa como modo de subjetivación.

Tipos de estrategias de obtención de ingresos y pobreza en familias mapuches rurales de Galvarino

Diversos estudios en Latinoamérica relacionan la condición de pobreza de las familias rurales con sus estrategias de obtención de ingresos; al respecto, se ha descrito una mayor presencia de pobres entre asalariados agrícolas que entre agricultores independientes, así como una menor incidencia de la pobreza en familias que han diversificado sus fuentes de ingresos. En Chile, las familias mapuches rurales mantienen índices de pobreza superiores al resto de la población. El menor acceso a activos físicos y capital humano, su localización en zonas de menor dinamismo económico y dificultades de acceso a mercados son algunas causas de esta realidad. El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar las relaciones entre estrategias de ingresos de familias mapuches rurales y las condiciones de pobreza de estas familias; para ello se construye una tipología de familias con el método de conglomerados. Los resultados arrojan tres tipos de estrategias: venta de mano de obra, dependencia y actividad silvoagropecuaria, que representan 54,5%, 26,2% y 19,3% de las familias, respectivamente. No se observan diferencias en la distribución de las familias pobres y no pobres por tipo de estrategia y, a pesar de la importancia de los ingresos extraprediales, las actividades por cuenta propia aún realizan un aporte relevante a los ingresos de estas familias.

Cuba's social policy after the disintegration of the Soviet Union -- social development as legitimacy of regime and its economy effectiveness

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Cuba has experienced a severe economic crisis, and the country's social policy has played an important role in showing the people a raison-d'etre for the revolution. This role has become even stronger in recent years, as internal and external actors demand political reforms and economic liberalization. This article first examines the Cuban government's use of social development to counter the demands for changes. It then looks at the extent that government social policy contributes economically to improving the Cuban living standard. The article demonstrates empirically how the leadership emphasizes their social accomplishments whenever demands for change come, and then shows that after the suspension of Soviet aid, Cuban social policy has been able to provide services mainly by relying on human capital and reducing quality materially because of the shortage of foreign reserves. This has limited the economic effectiveness of the services.

Sources of Regional Income Disparity in Rural Vietnam: Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition

This paper investigates determinants of regional income disparity in rural Vietnam, with special emphasis placed on the roles of human capital and land. We apply a decomposition method, suggested by Oaxaca and Blinder. We found that returns to assets rather than endowments, especially those of human capital, are one of the leading factors to account for income differences across regions. We also found that substantial improvements of returns to human capital in the Red River delta region are a driving force to catch up with Mekong River delta region. Unexpectedly, differences in land endowment do not strongly correlate with regional income disparity because better access to land in a region was partially offset by lower returns.

能力は有限、知識は無限

1993年にアメリカのロチェスター大学でSergio Rebelo準教授（当時）の経済成長論を履修した。ある授業でRebelo教授に「しばしば人的資本と技術は混同されがちだけれども、両者は財の性質上、大きく異なっている。技術、中でも他人に簡単に伝達できるように文書や設計図に記されている知識は公共財的性質を持っているが、人的資本はむしろ通常の財に似ている。知識は他人に簡単に漏洩し盗用されやすいが、人的資本はその所有者が専有可能である。その上、人的資本はその所有者が死んでしまえば消失するが、知識は記録として残る。この意味で、人的資本蓄積は有限だが、知識の蓄積は無限に可能である」と教わった。自分はそれまで、新古典派成長理論で仮定される「労働に体化された技術進歩」ばかり勉強していたので、技術と人的資本を同一視していた。それだけにこの説明は非常に新鮮であった。（以下略）

Infrastructure development and economic growth in China

China is the fastest growing country in the world for last few decades and one of the defining features of China's growth has been investment-led growth. China's sustained high economic growth and increased competitiveness in manufacturing has been underpinned by a massive development of physical infrastructure. In this context, we investigate the role of infrastructure in promoting economic growth in China for the period 1975 to 2007. Overall, the results reveal that infrastructure stock, labour force, public and private investments have played an important role in economic growth in China. More importantly, we find that Infrastructure development in China has significant positive contribution to growth than both private and public investment. Further, there is unidirectional causality from infrastructure development to output growth justifying China's high spending on infrastructure development since the early nineties. The experience from China suggests that it is necessary to design an economic policy that improves the physical infrastructure as well as human capital formation for sustainable economic growth in developing countries.

Skill sorting, inter-industry skill wage premium, and production chains: evidence from India 1999-2000

This paper proposes a mechanism that links industry’s technological characteristics (i.e. quality of non-labor inputs, which is proxied by the length of industry production chains), industry-specific skill wage premium, and skill sorting across industries. It is hypothesized that high-skilled workers are sorted into industries where they can receive a higher skill wage premium, by working with better quality non-labor input. The quality of non-labor inputs is assumed to be worse in industries with longer production chains due to the increased involvement of low-skilled labor and poor infrastructure over the sequential production. By examining Indian wage and employment data for 1999-2000, empirical evidence to support this mechanism can be obtained: First, the skill wage premium is lower [higher] in industries with longer [shorter] production chains. Second, the skill wage premium is lower [higher] in industries with a higher [lower] proportion of low-skilled workers producing inputs outside their own industry. Third, the proportion of high-skilled workers is larger in industries with shorter production chains and lower ratio of low-skilled labor involved, i.e., a skill sorting trend can be observed.