IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/11056.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Model of Multi-Dimensional Human Capital Investment: Specific vs. general investments under uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • ICHIDA Toshihiro

Abstract

Specialization and the division of labor are the sources of high productivity in modern society. When worker skills are multi-dimensional, workers may face a choice between general versus specific human capital investment. Given that individual agents face uncertainty in the relative output price, what are the optimal strategies for heterogeneous individual agents in human capital investment? In the absence of insurance markets, general investment gives an option value for changes in the environment. We analyze a model in which workers are born heterogeneous and are endowed with two-dimensional skills in different sectors, to determine if incentives exist for workers to invest in skills in which they had originally excelled or struggled. We find that some workers choose to invest in their weaker skill, via specific human capital investment, provided that the scale of the risk is big and that the parameter of relative risk aversion is greater than one. We find that there exist agents whose optimal human capital investment decisions reverse their ex ante comparative advantages ex post.

Suggested Citation

  • ICHIDA Toshihiro, 2011. "A Model of Multi-Dimensional Human Capital Investment: Specific vs. general investments under uncertainty," Discussion papers 11056, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:11056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/11e056.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Findlay, Ronald & Kierzkowski, Henryk, 1983. "International Trade and Human Capital: A Simple General Equilibrium Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(6), pages 957-978, December.
    2. Falvey, Rod & Greenaway, David & Silva, Joana, 2010. "Trade liberalisation and human capital adjustment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 230-239, July.
    3. Arnaud Costinot & Jonathan Vogel, 2010. "Matching and Inequality in the World Economy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 747-786, August.
    4. Ehrlich, Isaac & Becker, Gary S, 1972. "Market Insurance, Self-Insurance, and Self-Protection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(4), pages 623-648, July-Aug..
    5. Deaton,Angus & Muellbauer,John, 1980. "Economics and Consumer Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521296762.
    6. Spiros Bougheas & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Trade and the distribution of human capital," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 20, pages 395-407, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Sherwin Rosen, 2005. "Substitution And Division Of Labour," World Scientific Book Chapters,in: An Inframarginal Approach To Trade Theory, chapter 3, pages 29-51 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Sattinger, Michael, 1975. "Comparative Advantage and the Distributions of Earnings and Abilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(3), pages 455-468, May.
    9. A. D. Roy, 1951. "Some Thoughts On The Distribution Of Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 135-146.
    10. Franziska Ohnsorge & Daniel Trefler, 2007. "Sorting It Out: International Trade with Heterogeneous Workers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 868-892, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Falvey, Rod & Greenaway, David & Silva, Joana, 2010. "Trade liberalisation and human capital adjustment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 230-239, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sampson, Thomas, 2016. "Assignment reversals: Trade, skill allocation and wage inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 365-409.
    2. Heiland, Inga & Kohler, Wilhelm, 2022. "Heterogeneous workers, trade, and migration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. Blanchard, Emily & Willmann, Gerald, 2016. "Trade, education, and the shrinking middle class," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 263-278.
    4. Tatsuya Asami, 2021. "Timing of international market openings and shrinking middle‐income class," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 2275-2297, November.
    5. Grossman, Gene M. & Helpman, Elhanan & Kircher, Philipp, 2013. "Matching and Sorting in a Global Economy," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-69, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    6. Vegas, E & Ganimian, A. J., 2013. "Theory and Evidence on Teacher Policies in Developed and Developing Countries," Working Paper 104291, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    7. Liu, Runjuan & Trefler, Daniel, 2019. "A sorted tale of globalization: White collar jobs and the rise of service offshoring," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 105-122.
    8. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:525-602 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Arnaud Dupuy & Lex Borghans, 2005. "Supply and demand, allocation and wage inequality: an international comparison," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(9), pages 1073-1088.
    10. Lee, Eunhee & Yi, Kei-Mu, 2018. "Global value chains and inequality with endogenous labor supply," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 223-241.
    11. Christina Håkanson & Erik Lindqvist & Jonas Vlachos, 2021. "Firms and Skills: The Evolution of Worker Sorting," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(2), pages 512-538.
    12. Pao-Li Chang & Fali Huang, 2010. "Trade and Divergence in Education Systems," Working Papers 33-2010, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    13. Laurence Ales & Kurnaz Musab & Sleet Christopher, "undated". "Task, Talent, and Taxes," GSIA Working Papers 2014-E16, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    14. Pao‐Li Chang & Fali Huang, 2014. "Trade And Divergence In Education Systems," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1251-1280, November.
    15. Davidson, Carl & Heyman, Fredrik & Matusz, Steven & Sjöholm, Fredrik & Zhu, Susan Chun, 2014. "Globalization and imperfect labor market sorting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 177-194.
    16. Sarra Ben Yahmed, 2012. "Gender Wage Gaps across Skills and Trade Openness," AMSE Working Papers 1232, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised Nov 2012.
    17. Lee, Eunhee, 2020. "Trade, inequality, and the endogenous sorting ofheterogeneous workers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    18. Spiros Bougheas & Raymond Riezman, 2010. "Market Entry Costs, Underemployment and International Trade," Discussion Papers 10/18, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    19. McCann, Robert J. & Shi, Xianwen & Siow, Aloysius & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2012. "Becker Meets Ricardo: Multisector Matching with Social and Cognitive Skills," IZA Discussion Papers 6533, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Gene Grossman, 2013. "Heterogeneous workers and international trade," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(2), pages 211-245, June.
    21. Sergio Ocampo, 2019. "A task-based theory of occupations with multidimensional heterogeneity," 2019 Meeting Papers 477, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:11056. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.