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Education supply, economic growth and the dynamics of skills*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

Vincent Barthélémy  and
Philippe Michel
Vincent Barthélémy
Affiliation:
GREQAM, Université de la Méditerranée
Philippe Michel
Affiliation:
IUF, GREQAM, Université de la Méditerranée and CORE, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
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Summary

This paper examines the dynamics of the skill supply and its incidence on economic growth in the presence of education policies. When there are indivisibilities in the financing of human capital, small differences in the initial distribution of skills may greatly affect the stationary distribution: the economy may end up in a “low skill trap”, or in a high skill equilibrium. The model implies that for some ranges of initial distributions there will be intergenerational immobility. Finally, cross-country differences in long-term macroeconomic adjustment to education policies may be attributed, among other factors, to the existence of a congestion effect in the education system.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article analyse la dynamique de l'ofrre de qualifications et son incidence sur la croissance économique en présence de politiques d'éducation. Quand il y a des indivisibilités dans le financement du capital humain, de petites différences dans la distribution initiale de qualifications peut influencer grandement la distribution stationnaire : l'économie peut tomber dans une « trappe de faible qualification », ou atteindre un équilibre « hautement qualifié ». Le modèle fait ressortir, pour certains intervalles relatifs à la distribution initiale, une totale immobilité intergénérationnelle. Finalement, des différences d'ajustement macroéconomiques aux politiques éducatives selon les pays dans le long terme peuvent être attribuées, parmi d'autres facteurs, à l'existence d'un effet de congestion au sein du système éducatif.

Keywords

capital humaincroissanceéducationmobilité socialeI21I28O4growtheducationhuman capitalsocial mobilityI21I28O4
Type
Research Article
Information
Recherches Économiques de Louvain/ Louvain Economic Review , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , 2003 , pp. 145 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 2003 

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Footnotes

**

e-mail: vbarth@ehess.cnrs-mrs.fr. GREQAM, 2 rue de la Charité, 13002 Marseille, France

*

The authors wish to thank Cécilia García-Peñalosa, Pierre Pestieau, Jean-Pierre Vidal as well as the two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies.

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