IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/oxecpp/v75y2023i2p307-324..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human capital and welfare

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Bosi
  • Carmen Camacho
  • David Desmarchelier

Abstract

We introduce the Human Development Index (HDI) in a growth model to show that if households cared about human capital, even if infinitesimally, then human capital would increase forever protecting economies indirectly. Here, human capital will have an additional positive effect on social welfare through the quality of individual health and education. In a simple economy with a Cobb–Douglas technology and logarithmic preferences, we provide the explicit trajectories for human capital, consumption, and the HDI, which correspond to the balanced growth path (BGP). Using a two-step maximization strategy, we compute the optimal initial value of the control variable, in this case, the initial optimal labour supply. In other words, we prove the optimality of the BGP. We highlight a HDI crossing property: the propensity to consume has a positive effect on the HDI in the short run, but negative in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Bosi & Carmen Camacho & David Desmarchelier, 2023. "Human capital and welfare," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(2), pages 307-324.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:75:y:2023:i:2:p:307-324.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpac020
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

    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:oup:oxecpp:v:75:y:2023:i:2:p:307-324.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/oep .

    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.