A Comparative Study of the Impacts of Human Capital and Physical Capital on Building Sustainable Economies at Different Stages of Economic Development

Xiaohao Ding, Yifan Huang, Wenjuan Gao and Weifang Min
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Xiaohao Ding: Institute of Economics of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Yifan Huang: Center for Higher Education Development of Xiamen University, Institute of Education, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
Wenjuan Gao: Institute of Higher Education, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Weifang Min: Institute of Economics of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-14

Abstract: This study investigated the contributions of human capital and physical capital to economies at different stages by measuring the economic development with the traditional GDP and green GDP. The traditional GDP stood for the quantity of economic growth, and the green GDP, taking both the energy consumption and environmental pollution into account, was employed to represent the sustainability of economic development. We used a panel data of 143 countries and regions during the period from 1990 to 2014, and results showed that the elasticities of output with respect to human capital were greater compared to physical capital, while green GDP was significantly more sensitive to changes in human capital than the traditional GDP. In particular, considering the unbalanced distribution of economic growth among countries and regions, we employed the quantile regression model to explore the heterogeneous roles of physical and human capital in different stages of economic development, which evidenced not only the significance but also the stability of human capital. As national economic levels grew, countries became less dependent on physical capital, yet human capital maintained its outstanding role at different stages of economic development, particularly for the building of more sustainable economies.

Keywords: physical capital; human capital; green economy; Solow model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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