موسسات، سرمایه انسانی، و رشد : مکانیزم نهادی

This paper contributes to the debate on the relationship between human capital, institutions, and economic growth. The paper first develops a micro-foundation model linking institutions to human capital. The advantage of our modeling strategy is that the human capital accumulation function is derived from an endogenous process. The theoretical model shows that improvements in the quality of institutions foster human capital accumulation, decrease income inequality and change the historical development path. The paper uses cross-country panel data from 1965 to 2005 to test some of the model's propositions and finds that deep structures or structural institutions – which are very persistent and rooted on the historical development path of an economy – affect long-term economic performance, while political institutions are uncorrelated with productivity and long-term economic growth. The empirical estimates also show that growth of physical and human capital – instead of levels – determines long-run economic growth.

The literature examining the importance of institutions as a major driver of economic development can be traced as far back as Smith (1776, chap. VII), but has only gained prominence in the mainstream economic literature recently (e.g. Wolf et al., 1955, North and Thomas, 1973, North, 1990, Hall and Jones, 1999, Rodrik, 2000, Rodrik et al., 2004, Acemoglu et al., 2001, Acemoglu et al., 2003, Acemoglu et al., 2005a and Acemoglu et al., 2005c). However, the links through which institutions impact income, technological change and factor accumulation, particularly human capital, is still the subject of an ongoing debate (Engerman and Sokoloff, 2002, Glaeser et al., 2004, Acemoglu et al., 2005b, Castelló-Climent, 2008, Tebaldi and Elmslie, 2008, Tebaldi and Elmslie, 2013 and Coe et al., 2009). This study fits within the literature that examines how human capital, institutions and economic growth are related, and is motivated by a controversy on how institutions and human capital are interconnected. Lipset (1960) argues that human capital accumulation contributes to shape efficient policies, less violence and more political stability. Consistent with this view, Glaeser et al. (2004, p. 282) provides empirical evidence that human capital positively affects political institutions and, therefore, fosters economic growth. Castelló-Climent (2008) also finds evidence that an educational improvement experienced by the majority of the population influences democracy via both implementation and sustainability of democracies. Contrary to these ideas, Acemoglu et al. (2005b) show that the effect of education on democracy disappears when country heterogeneity is accounted for. Moreover, they also find that there is no significant effect from education on other measures of political institutions. Acemoglu et al., 2003 and Acemoglu et al., 2005c suggest that the institutional arrangement is the key determinant of the joint evolution of economic and political developments.1 This paper provides a bridge between these views in the sense that human capital and institutions are interrelated in producing the foundations for long run economic development; therefore, we provide a more elaborated model that enlightens this long run process. In particular, this paper develops a micro-foundation model linking institutions to human capital. The advantage of our modeling strategy is that the human capital accumulation function is derived from an endogenous process. However, the human capital accumulation process does not occur automatically; it comes from a decision that weights the intertemporal rewards from the accumulation of human capital against its costs. Institutions play a crucial role in this process as they affect the rate of return to education. Institutions that provide a well-functioning human capital market increase the return to education, thus stimulating human capital accumulation. Therefore, the amount of human capital available in the economy depends on the quality of institutions. Since the productivity of an economy depends on the accumulation of human capital, economic development is linked to the quality of the institutions. This paper uses system GMM estimates to examine the model and shows that institutions positively affect economic growth. Moreover, controlling for institutional quality, this paper finds evidence that the accumulation of both physical and human capital plays an important role in explaining economic growth. The empirical estimates show that growth of physical and human capital – instead of levels – determines long-run economic growth. The empirical findings, together with the theory developed in the paper, support the view that human capital accumulation and institutions are jointly determined, thus creating a historical development path. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the literature review, which discusses different views of the role of institutions on economic development and emphasizes what type of institution is most conducive to economic development. Section 3 develops an economic model that shows how institutions operate at a micro-level in the economy. Section 4 presents an econometric analysis that uses cross-country panel data from 1965 to 2005 to test some of the model's propositions. Section 5 summarizes the paper's findings.

The theoretical growth model developed in this paper demonstrates the importance of the interaction between human capital and institutions for explaining the development process. Institutions play a key role in setting up the path of human capital accumulation, which fosters technology and output growth. Productivity then contributes to increase the returns to human capital accumulation and induces non-educated workers to invest in education and become educated. This generates a self-perpetuating accumulation mechanism. The empirical estimates corroborate some insights from the theoretical model. We find that structural institutions positively affect long-term economic performance. However, political institutions are found to not be correlated with productivity and long-term economic growth. Hence, structural institutions need to be improved in order to contribute to long-run economic growth. The empirical estimates also show that growth of physical and human capital – instead of levels – determines long-run economic growth. Nonetheless, our empirical findings are limited and just a small step toward a more elaborate and necessary research on structural institutions and the effect on long run economic performance. The major policy implication is that the growth path is tied to structural institutions. The theory and evidence in this paper put the historical development path in the following perspective: if early institutions are poor, then the process of transferring knowledge to non-educated people will be affected via lower rates of return to education. This will cause the knowledge accumulation process to be slow, thus affecting long run economic performance. However, institutional improvements would reflect immediately in more knowledge creation via an increased rate of return to education. The acceleration in the growth rate of human capital generates further improvements in structural institutions.