This paper shows that search in the labor market has important effects on accumulation decisions. In a labor market characterized by search, employment contracts are naturally incomplete and this creates a wedge between the rates of return and marginal products of both human and physical capital. As a result, when a worker invests more in his human capital, he increases the rate of return on physical capital. Provided that these factors are complements in the production function, this will increase the desired level of investment for firms. Then, because physical capital is not being paid its marginal product, the rate of return on all human capital goes up. Thus in this model there are pecuniary increasing returns to scale in human capital accumulation in the sense that the more human capital there is, the more profitable it is to accumulate human capital. Applying this argument conversely, the presence of pecuniary increasing returns in physical capital accumulation also follows. These pecuniary increasing returns lead to amplified inefficiencies and to the possibility of multiple equilibria. They also imply that factor distribution of income has an important impact on growth. Finally, the paper derives new links between unemployment and human capital accumulation and shows that when technology choice is endogenized, search introduces a negative wage formation externality which may lead to excessively fast diffusion of new technologies.
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centre for Economic Performance, LSE in its series CEP Discussion Papers with number
dp0236.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)