Inducing human capital formation: migration as a substitute for subsidies

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Stark, O; Wang, Y
• 署名单位: University of Oslo; University of Vienna; City University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(01)00104-9
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 29-46
• 关键词: MIGRATION; human capital formation; externalities; social welfare

摘要

When productivity is fostered by an individual's own human capital as well as by the economy-wide average level of human capital, individuals under-invest in human capital. The provision of subsidies for the formation of human capital, conditional on the subsidy being self-financed by tax revenues, can bring the economy to its socially optimal level of human capital. Yet a strictly positive probability of migration to a richer country, by raising both the level of human capital formed by optimizing individuals in the home country and the average level of human capital of non-migrants in the country, can enhance welfare and nudge the economy toward the social optimum. Indeed, under a well-controlled, restrictive migration policy the welfare of all workers is higher than in the absence of this policy. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.