HUMAN CAPITAL AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN THE ITALIAN REGIONAL ECONOMIES: A SECTORAL ANALYSIS

Sergio Lodde

Working Paper CRENoS from Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia

Abstract: The paper examines the relationship between human capital and productivity growth with reference to the Italian regions. Two approaches can be distinguished. One belonging to the neoclassical tradition stresses the accumulation of human capital as a determinant of growth, while the other, inspired by Nelson and Phelps, emphasizes the role of the stock in developing endogenous technology and catching up with more advanced economies. These hypotheses have been tested at an aggregate level but results might be the overall outcome of different processes across sectors due to the different catching-up potential. In particular we expect the Nelson-Phelps hypothesis to be more relevant in the industrial sector where innovation is the most important growth determinant. A model is estimated which allows to test both the neoclassical and the Nelson-Phelps hypotheses breaking down the analysis by sector. The results do not confirm our expectations. In the industrial sector the neoclassical hypothesis is clearly rejected by the data. Some evidence supporting the Schumpeterian one can be detected when the technical component of human capital is taken into account but it is not robust to changes in the model specification. In the service sector the results are inconclusive as well. A positive and significant effect of human capital accumulation has been found for the whole sector but the explanatory power of this variable decreases considerably in the marketable services branch.

Keywords: growth; human capital; regions; sectors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O40 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eff, nep-geo, nep-hrm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://crenos.unica.it/crenos/sites/default/files/wp/07.11.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Human Capital and Productivity Growth in Italian Regional Economies: A Sectoral Analysis (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cns:cnscwp:200711

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