Human Capital Inequality, Life Expectancy and Economic Growth

Amparo Castello-Climent and Rafael Domenech

No 46, Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 from Royal Economic Society

Abstract: This paper provides a theoretical model in which inequality affects per capita income when individuals decide to accumulate human capital depending on their life expectancy. The model assumes that life expectancy depends to a large extent on the environment in which individuals grow up, in particular, on the human capital of their parents. After calibrating the life expectancy function according to the international evidence for cross-section data, our results show the existence of multiple steady states depending on the initial distribution of education. In particular, human capital may converge towards different stable steady states. In accordance with the evidence displayed by many developing countries, the low steady state is a poverty trap in which children are raised in poor families, have a low life expectancy and work as non-educated workers all their lives.

Keywords: life expectancy; iinequality; human capital accumulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-06-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Human Capital Inequality, Life Expectancy And Economic Growth (2008)
Working Paper: Human Capital Inequality, Life Expectancy and Economic Growth (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecj:ac2003:46

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