HUMAN CAPITAL, DIVERGENT OPPORTUNITIES, AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE US

Christopher Warburton

Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, 2019, vol. 19, issue 1, 5-28

Abstract: By analyzing cross-sectional data to evaluate three hypotheses of insignificant differences in the US, this paper finds that divergent opportunities exist to acquire human and financial capital. Additionally, empirical estimates reveal that complaints of divergent opportunities do not show significant statistical variation in spending on corrections and the investment in education, relative to per capita spending on corrections. Indicators of human development index (HDI) suggest that Blacks who do not have equitable access to human capital and income are performing poorly relative to their white counterparts. Lack of human capital degrades the employable workforce of the US, exacerbates structural unemployment, and increases crime and unproductive consumption of scarce economic resources. The difficulties of acquiring human capital are compounded by microaggressive behavior and dysfunctional institutions. The paper concludes that lack of opportunities has counterproductive economic consequences for nations that want to improve the wellbeing of their citizens and allocate human capital in such a way that good human capital is not liquidated to increase the supply of relatively worthless capital (a new Gresham’s law). Further, the paper argues that as a development policy, public policy should be oriented towards the optimal acquisition of social benefits when social benefits have greater value than private benefits.

Keywords: Wellbeing of citizens; equitable access to human capital; inclusive development. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 I21 I24 J14 J17 J31 K31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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