Suchergebnisse

We analyse the effect of human capital obsolescence due to the introduction of technological innovations on the long‐run growth rate, and show that in equilibrium the pace of technical change may be faster than is socially optimal. In such cases, the existence of market imperfections, and their costs for firms, may improve the welfare for the society as a whole. In particular, we assume that firms do not have full information on workers' skills but can arrange some form of internal training that permits them to acquire the lacking information. Training costs reduce research and development investments by firms and in this way draw the market equilibrium closer to the social optimum.

AbstractRecent years have witnessed a growing aversion to immigration worldwide and, at the same time, radicalization of public opinion on the issue. This paper explores the relationship between media news and individual attitudes to immigration. We run an empirical analysis whereby an index capturing individuals' pro-immigration attitude, measured in 19 countries, is regressed over indexes capturing the coverage and tone of media news about immigration. We find that pro-immigration attitudes are negatively correlated with media coverage and the negative tone of news. However, this correlation is significant only for those with high trust in the media. In the case of low trust, higher coverage of immigration and a negative news slant make previous preferences and beliefsvis-à-visimmigration more extreme, yielding a lower pro-immigration index for those politically on the right, while the opposite applies to those on the left. The pro-immigration index is constructed by means of fuzzy methods to account for the many aspects defining attitudes to immigration.