IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hol/holodi/0103.html

Human Capital and the Future of Transition Economies

Author

Abstract

Transition economies have an initial condition of high human capital relative to GDP per capita. But they will not necessarily realize their latent high growth potential. In the model, at a good equilibrium a large number of children of well-educated parents take advantage of their family backgrounds and invest substantially in their own human capital. At a bad equilibrium, past educational achievements are wasted as children fail to build upon their parents' achievements. I argue that this sort of multiple equilibria provides a basis for distinguishing development economics from transition economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Spagat, 2001. "Human Capital and the Future of Transition Economies," Royal Holloway, University of London: Discussion Papers in Economics 01/3, Department of Economics, Royal Holloway University of London, revised Dec 2001.
    • Handle: RePEc:hol:holodi:0103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/economics/Research/WorkingPapers/pdf/dpe0103.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Tilman Brück & Damir Esenaliev, 2018. "Post†socialist transition and intergenerational educational mobility in Kyrgyzstan," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 26(1), pages 61-89, January.
    3. Spagat, Michael, 2002. "Human Capital, Growth and Inequality in Transition Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 3556, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Habibov, Nazim, 2012. "Early childhood care and education attendance in Central Asia," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 798-806.
    5. Wei Xu & Xinyu Li, 2025. "Assessing How Educational Attainment Drives Economic Freedom, Urbanization, and Mineral Resource Management in Eastern Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-26, May.
    6. Yue Sun & Liqiu Zhao & Zhong Zhao, 2024. "Hukou Status and Children’s Education in China," Working Papers 2024-004, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    7. Searing, Elizabeth A.M. & Rios-Avila, Fernando & Lecy, Jesse D., 2013. "The impact of psychological trauma on wages in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 165-173.
    8. Arabsheibani, Reza & Staneva, Anita, 2012. "Returns to Education in Russia: Where There Is Risky Sexual Behaviour There Is Also an Instrument," IZA Discussion Papers 6726, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Desislava Kolarova, 2003. "Business Services in the Economies of France and Bulgaria," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 85-101.
    10. Marta C. N. Simões, 2011. "Education Composition and Growth: A Pooled Mean Group Analysis of OECD Countries," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 58(4), pages 455-471, December.
    11. repec:lic:licosd:14404 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Mariya Neycheva, 2016. "Secondary versus higher education for growth: the case of three countries with different human capital’s structure and quality," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(6), pages 2367-2393, November.
    13. Mihails Hazans & Ija Trapeznikova, 2006. "Access to Secondary Education in Albania: Incentives, Obstacles, and Policy Spillovers," SSE Riga/BICEPS Research Papers 2006-1, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS);Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga).
    14. Khadijah Iddrisu & Joshua Yindenaba Abor & Kannyiri T. Banyen, 2024. "Financial development, globalisation and foreign direct investment nexus: an empirical study from Africa," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 4(6), pages 1-31, June.
    15. Yue Sun & Liqiu Zhao & Zhong Zhao, 2025. "Hukou Status and Children’s Education in China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 979-1021.
    16. Wioletta Wierzbicka, 2021. "Differentiation in levels of human capital among small cities in Warminsko-Mazurskie Voivodship," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 9(2), pages 209-222, December.
    17. Tilman Brück & Damir Esenaliev, 2013. "Post-Socialist Transition and the Intergenerational Transmission of Education in Kyrgyzstan," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1284, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Yelena Kalyuzhnova & Uma Kambhampati, 2007. "Education or employment-choices facing young people in Kazakhstan," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(5), pages 607-626.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • P2 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:hol:holodi:0103. 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: Claire Blackman The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Claire Blackman to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/economics/ .

    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.