مراحل توسعه اقتصادی و پویایی انتقال از یک مدل رشد نوآوری در آموزش و پرورش

This paper extends earlier analysis of the transitional dynamics of a growth model in which both human capital and innovation drive income expansion. Funke and Strulik [2000. On endogenous growth with physical capital, human capital and product variety. European Economic Review 44, 491–515] suggest that the typical advanced economy follows three development phases, characterized in a temporal order by physical capital accumulation, human capital formation, and innovation, and that the transitional dynamics of the model reproduce such a sequencing. I argue that other sequences of the phases of development are possible and show that the model can generate a trajectory in which innovation precedes human capital formation. This trajectory accords with the observation that the rise in formal education followed with a considerable lag the process of industrialization. U.S. income and educational time series data are used to corroborate the innovation–education trajectory.

Funke and Strulik (2000) provide a formal framework to integrate two separate lines of research on economic growth. One strand of research, inspired by the seminal contributions of Uzawa (1965), Lucas (1988), and Rebelo (1991), is based on the premise that the spectacular growth record of modern economies is due to investment in human capital. The other, which builds on the influential work of Romer (1990), Grossman and Helpman (1991), and Aghion and Howitt (1992), among others, posits that the chief driving force of economic development is technical change resulting from innovative activities carried out by profit-maximizing agents. Funke and Strulik (2000) (henceforth FS) argue that not only are the two views compatible with each other, but they can be merged into a unified theory to give a more profound understanding of the process of development. Their conjecture is that an economy's first stage of development is characterized by physical capital accumulation, as emphasized for instance in the Cass-Koopmans (CK) model. Here, growth occurs only as long as the capital–labor ratio keeps rising. Only when the economy enters a second stage of development characterized by human capital accumulation does long-run sustained growth become possible. They use the Lucas–Uzawa (LU) model to describe this growth stage. In the third and most sophisticated phase of development, both human capital formation and innovation are present. A product variety expansion growth model, as exemplified in Grossman and Helpman (1991), is merged with a Lucas–Uzawa model to capture this stage of development.

I argued that a unified growth model that allows for both human capital formation and innovation is amenable to capturing competing stories of the development process. In addition to the view that human capital formation is a first step toward the emergence of a modern economy (whenever the proper initial conditions are present), it was shown that an appropriate parameterization of the model is also compatible with the industrialization-education sequence. This observation increases the explanatory power of the integrated model and makes it possible to reconcile its transitional dynamics with the widely documented observation that the process of industrialization increases the demand for human capital, inducing individuals to invest in education, and that education stimulates further technological advancement. From the simulation exercises, it emerged that the elasticities of output with respect to the input vector regulate the predicted escape route from stagnation. When the weight assigned to intermediate inputs is large enough relative to that attributed to human capital, the onset of the educational economy is preceded by the innovation economy. The traditional steady state growth accounting does not give us a clear indication of what the elasticities are. However, a basic calibration of the transitional dynamics generates an additional constraint on the set of plausible parameters. The process of industrialization preceded that of formal education of the masses, and it was the result of innovation, as intended in Schumpeter (1934). I believe that the model under the parameters recorded in Table 3A goes a considerable way in reproducing this development phase.