IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1657.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Increasing Returns to Education and the Skills Under-Investment Trap

Author

Listed:
  • Booth, Alison L.

    (Australian National University)

  • Coles, Melvyn

    (University of Essex)

Abstract

We model educational investment and labor supply in a competitive economy with home and market production. Heterogeneous workers are assumed to have different productivities both at home and in the workplace. We investigate the degree to which there is under-investment in human capital, and examine the deadweight losses that accrue via distortionary taxes. We show that there are increasing returns to education at the participation margin, and that deadweight losses are most severe for workers located here. Although the social planner's optimum implies the worker should choose a high level of education and participate in the market sector, instead the worker chooses not to invest in human capital and either non-participation or partial participation in market-sector work. A severe deadweight loss is generated by this substitution effect. Those individuals most likely to be in this trap are those types with large enough home productivity, who are likely either to be involved in home production or to be characterized by a strong preference for other non-market sector activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Booth, Alison L. & Coles, Melvyn, 2005. "Increasing Returns to Education and the Skills Under-Investment Trap," IZA Discussion Papers 1657, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1657
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1657.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Florence Jaumotte, 2003. "Female Labour Force Participation: Past Trends and Main Determinants in OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 376, OECD Publishing.
    2. Gronau, Reuben, 1977. "Leisure, Home Production, and Work-The Theory of the Allocation of Time Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1099-1123, December.
    3. Pietro Garibaldi & Etienne Wasmer, 2004. "Raising Female Employment: Reflections and Policy Tools," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 320-330, 04/05.
    4. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8942 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8942 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Patricia F. Apps & Ray Rees, 1999. "Individual versus Joint Taxation in Models with Household Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 393-403, April.
    7. Antonio Merlo, 2004. "Introduction To Economic Models Of Crime," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(3), pages 677-679, August.
    8. Vella, F, 1992. "Simple Tests for Sample Selection Bias in Censored and Discrete Choice Models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(4), pages 413-421, Oct.-Dec..
    9. Daron Acemoglu, 1996. "A Microfoundation for Social Increasing Returns in Human Capital Accumulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 779-804.
    10. Sandmo, Agnar, 1990. "Tax Distortions and Household Production," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 78-90, January.
    11. Booth, Alison & Coles, Melvyn G, 2004. "Part-Time Employment Traps and Childcare Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 4357, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    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. Rice, Patricia, 2006. "Wages and the education and employment choices of young people: empirical analysis for Great Britain," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 612, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    2. Mendolicchio, Concetta & Paolini, Dimitri & Pietra, Tito, 2012. "Investments in education and welfare in a two-sector, random matching economy," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 367-385.
    3. Tammy Campbell, 2014. "Selected at seven: The relationships between teachers' judgments and assessments of pupils, and pupils' stream placements," DoQSS Working Papers 14-10, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.

    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. Alison Booth & Melvyn Coles & Xiaodong Gong, 2006. "Increasing Returns to Education: Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 522, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    2. Jara-Díaz, Sergio & Rosales-Salas, Jorge, 2017. "Beyond transport time: A review of time use modeling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 209-230.
    3. Booth, Alison L. & Coles, Melvyn, 2007. "A microfoundation for increasing returns in human capital accumulation and the under-participation trap," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1661-1681, October.
    4. Pietro Garibaldi & Etienne Wasmer, 2005. "Equilibrium Search Unemployment, Endogenous Participation, And Labor Market Flows," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(4), pages 851-882, June.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "Gender-Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-40, May.
    6. van Soest, A.H.O. & Stancanelli, E.G.F., 2010. "Does Income Taxation Affect Partners’ Household Chores?," Discussion Paper 2010-76, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    7. Strand, Jon, 2005. "Tax distortions, household production, and black-market work," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 851-871, December.
    8. Katrin Sommerfeld, 2009. "Older Babies - More Active Mothers? How Maternal Labor Supply Changes as the Child Grows," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 129(2), pages 227-240.
    9. Jean Kimmel & Rachel Connelly, 2007. "Mothers’ Time Choices: Caregiving, Leisure, Home Production, and Paid Work," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    10. Patricia Apps & Ray Rees, 2022. "Inequality measurement and tax/transfer policy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(4), pages 953-984, August.
    11. Sam Allgood, 2009. "The Collective Household, Household Production and Efficiency of Marginal Reforms," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(5), pages 749-771, October.
    12. Koulovatianos, Christos & Schrder, Carsten & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2009. "Nonmarket Household Time and the Cost of Children," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27, pages 42-51.
    13. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Claus Thustrup Kreiner, 2007. "Optimal Taxation of Married Couples with Household Production," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 63(4), pages 498-518, December.
    14. Apps, Patricia, 2003. "Gender, Time Use and Models of the Household," IZA Discussion Papers 796, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Patricia Apps, 2006. "Family Taxation: An Unfair and Inefficient System," CEPR Discussion Papers 524, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    16. Ken Yamada, 2010. "Intertemporal Substitution in the Time Allocation of Married Women," Working Papers 27-2010, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    17. Booth, Alison & Coles, Melvyn G, 2007. "The Impact of Fiscal Policy on Labour Supply and Education in an Economy with Household and Market Production," CEPR Discussion Papers 6265, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Helen Tauchen, 2010. "Estimating the Supply of Crime: Recent Advances," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Sherwin Rosen, 1997. "Public Employment, Taxes, and the Welfare State in Sweden," NBER Chapters, in: The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model, pages 79-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Maxim Bouev, 2005. "State Regulations, Job Search and Wage Bargaining: A Study in the Economics of the Informal Sector," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp764, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income tax; returns to education; home production; labor supply;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets

    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:iza:izadps:dp1657. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.