Why do some countries industrialize later than others? Recent literature suggests that the prime reason is low agricultural productivity. This paper argues that the initial inequality of human capital could also be a contributing factor to the delayed process of industrialization characterizing some countries. We develop a neo-classical growth model which predicts that countries with a greater initial knowledge gap between rich and poor agents industrialize slowly, and that human capital inequality, although declining, tends to be persistent. Our cross-country data lend support to these predictions.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis in its series CDMA Conference Paper Series with number
0401.
References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 1999.
"Malthus to Solow,"
Staff Report
257, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 1998.
"Malthus to Solow,"
NBER Working Papers
6858, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 2002.
"Malthus to Solow,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1205-1217, September.
[Downloadable!]
Benabou, R., 1996.
"Inequality and Growth,"
Working Papers
96-22, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions: