Public investment and human capital with segmented labour markets

C-Tier
Journal: Oxford Economic Papers
Year: 2024
Volume: 76
Issue: 1
Pages: 162-186

Authors (6)

Edward F Buffie (not in RePEc) Christopher Adam (not in RePEc) Luis-Felipe Zanna (not in RePEc) Lacina Balmae (not in RePEc) Dawit Tessema (not in RePEc) Kangni Kpodar (International Monetary Fund (I...)

Score contribution per author:

0.168 = (α=2.01 / 6 authors) × 0.5x C-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium macroeconomic model with segmented labour markets and efficiency wages to examine how labour market structures influence the impact of human capital investment in low-income countries. For plausible calibration values, public investment in education is much more effective than infrastructure investment in promoting long-run economic development, but because investment in education affects labour productivity with a lag, policymakers face an intertemporal trade-off which depends on their social discount rate and the weight of distributional objectives in the social welfare function. We show the distortionary structure of labour markets matters in leveraging welfare gains from public investment and in shifting the optimal public investment programme further in favour of human capital, relative to the case of flex-wage full-employment labour markets.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:oxecpp:v:76:y:2024:i:1:p:162-186.
Journal Field
General
Author Count
6
Added to Database
2026-01-25