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2. Supply side: Investements in Human Capital, R&D cloned 4/15/2022

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Last updated almost 4 years ago
13 questions
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HUMAN CAPITAL:

Human capital is the stock of knowledge, habits, social and personality attributes, including creativity, embodied in the ability to perform labor so as to produce economic value.
Question 1
1.

What is the correlation between human capital and GDP per capita?

Question 2
2.

Correlation is not causation. But if we assume, that human capital score is a cause of GDP per capita, what could be the explanation for that?

Question 3
3.

Now let's assume that it is the other way round: if human capital score is caused by GDP per capita, what could be the reason for that?

Question 4
4.

Which explanation seems more plausible to you?

Question 5
5.

Above, you can see a simple model of a feedback loop between human capital and economic growth. What happens if you don't intevene in this cycle? What happens after you intervene and invest in education?

PS. You can build your own models with Loopy. Cool, right? If you want, you can start with editing the above model.

Question 6
6.

Education and health care have "positive externalities" because consumption of both affects not only the people inolved directly in the transaction (eg. a doctor and her patient), but also third parties. If you have a flu and then you treat yourself, I will benefit as well, because you won't pass on the flu. But I didn't pay for the treatment, so I benefit without any expenditure - that's positive externality. Can you think of any other examples of positive externalities?

We have already discussed possible government responses to unemployment. Many can be treated as supply side policies:


W = wages

QL/T = Quantity of Labour supplied and demanded over time

ASL = Aggregate Supply of Labour

TLF = Total Labour Force

NRU = Natural Rate of Unemployment

Question 7
7.

Explain, what happens on the diagram above?

Question 8
8.

Investments in human capital have both demand-side and supply-side effects. Chose the right sequence of following effects:

  1. After a year-long training people aquire new skills and are able to find jobs
  2. Structural unemployment shrinks
  3. AD shifts to the right
  4. Economic growth occurs
  5. There is a problem with structural unemployment
  6. Government invests in life-long learing and retraining
  7. AD and LRAS shifts to the right
  8. In the short run, unemployment/underemployment among teachers gets smaller
Question 9
9.

Do your own online research and find specific example of one of the above. Explain how it works.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT:

The sponsorship of research and development (R&D) is largely (though not exclusively) considered the domain of developed countries. The best case for such funding is that productive scientific research will not be undertaken by the market alone. This can be a result of costs and risks attached to the research. Research is often very expensive and returns are uncertain, thus profit-maximizing firms may shy away from it.
Question 10
10.

Explain, how the aforementioned "incentives to firms to engage in R&D" may work.

Question 11
11.

Just as investment in human capital, investment in R&D will have both supply side and demand side effects. Give on example of government spending (G) and one example of capital spending (I) that will affect AD when a policy of R&D encouragement is enforced.

Question 12
12.

Using examples from the previous question, explain what happens on the diagram above.

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL [EXTRA 5000 POINTS]

Question 13
13.

In ~100 words, summarize Mazzucato's argument.