We utilize county-level data to explore the roles of different types of human capital accumulation in U.S. growth determination. The data includes over 3,000 cross-sectional observations and 39 demographic control variables. The large number of observations provides enough degrees of freedom to...

We examine the relationship between human capital and economic activity in U.S. metropolitan areas, extending the literature in two ways. First, we utilize new data on metropolitan area GDP to measure economic activity. Results show that a one-percentage-point increase in the proportion of...

Demographic change belongs to the mega-trends of the 20th and the 21st century. The ongoing aging process in major industrialized countries gives rise to the relative scarcity of raw labor and the relative abundance of physical capital. Standard macroeconomic models suggest that this depresses...

This article by Raynauld Letourneau and Martine Lajoie of Industry Canada provides a detailed regional analysis of levels of living standards, measured as output per capita, and productivity (output per worker) for the 1995-97 period, the most recent data currently available. They find that all...

This paper exploits the dual growth accounting framework to determine the effect of schooling on total-factor productivity (TFP) growth for U.S. states over 1980 to 2010. Our growth accounting exercise shows that the current literature, which approximates TFP growth by only real wage growth,...

The latest Forbes 2000 Rankings leave no doubt: Large corporations continue to exist (and they grow even larger), but fewer than ever originate in the U.S. Among the Top 10 listed firms four are Chinese. This article argues that firms from China and India will soon dominate the global...

The recent literature on externalities of schooling in the U.S. is rather mixed: positive external effects of average education are hardly found at all, while often positive externalities from the share of college graduates are identified. This paper proposes a simple model to explain this fact...

Pollution is a common byproduct of economic activity. Although policymakers should account for both the benefits and the negative externalities of polluting activities, it is difficult to identify those who are harmed and those who benefit from them. To overcome this challenge, our paper uses a...

The fraction of persons holding a college degree differs nearly two-fold across U.S. states. This paper documents data related to state educational attainment differences and explores possible explanations. It shows that highly educated states employ skill-biased technologies, specialize in...

Ongoing demographic change will lead to a relative scarcity of raw labor to the effect that output growth will be decreasing in the next decades, a secular stagnation. As physical capital will be relatively abundant, this decrease of output will be accompanied by reductions of asset returns. We...