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[eng] In this paper we claim that capital is as important in the production of ideas as in the production of final goods. Hence, we introduce capital in the production of knowledge and discuss the associated problems arising from the public good nature of knowledge. We show that although population growth can affect economic growth, it is not necessary for growth to arise. We derive both the social planner and the decentralized economy growth rates and show the optimal subsidy that decentralizes it. We also show numerically that the effects of population growth on the market growth rate, the optimal growth rate and the optimal subsidy are small. Besides, we find that physical capital is more important for the production of knowledge than for the production of goods.

An increase in the supply of skilled labor has been common across the world. However, despite the rise in skilled labor force, not all countries have achieved high income levels, even when their structural transformation follows the same path (from agriculture to industry and, then, from industry to services). Skilled workers might end up in either high or low TFP sectors, according to two opposite theories of structural change (skill-biased structural transformation and stagnant structural transformation). We show that directed technical change is needed to achieve skill-biased structural transformation and, therefore, skilled workers are allocated to high TFP sectors. We present macrodata and microdata evidence to identify the existence of directed technical change. We reveal that in the U.S., South Korea and France, skilled workers have ended up in high TFP sectors due to the existence of directed technical change in the process of structural transformation, but not in Canada. There is a lack of clear evidence for Italy and Spain.

This article examines the properties of the optimal fiscal policy in an economy with warm-glow altruism (utility interdependence) and heterogeneous individuals. We propose a new efficiency concept, D-efficiency, that considers an implicit constraint in the act of giving: Donors cannot bequeath to donees more than their existing resources. Considering this constraint, we show that the market equilibrium is not socially efficient. The efficient level of bequest transfers can be implemented by the market with estate and labor-income subsidies and a capital-income tax. In the absence of lump-sum taxation, the government faces a trade-off between minimizing distortions and eliminating external effects. The implied tax policy differs from Pigovian taxation since the government's ability to correct the external effects is limited. Finally, we show that the efficiency-equity trade-off does not affect the qualitative features of the optimal distortionary fiscal policy. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

We analyze how public policies for self-financing education, public fund for loans and deferred deductibility of education expenses, affect growth in an overlapping generations economy where individuals can be borrowing-constrained on human capital investment. We show that public loans positively affect growth in the unconstrained economy, while how tax deductibility affects growth depends on the magnitude of both public loans and tax deductibility. In the borrowing-constrained economy, public loans positively affect growth, while tax deductibility does not affect growth. Both government policies affect the borrowing-constraint tightness and, therefore, can shift the economy from being borrowing-constrained to unconstrained or vice versa.

In this paper we show that the R&D effort of a country and its economic growth are highly correlated. In order to analyze this relationship, we study the nature of the researching activity. In particular, we focus on the following characteristics of research: the inherent uncertainty of researching, the existence of a wage premium associated to innovative activities, and moral hazard. Assuming that a higher R&D effort translates into a higher R&D success probability, we show that when the R&D success probability is low, the economy is not willing to bear the risk associated to R&D activities. As a consequence, few researchers are hired and the economy stays in an R&D poverty trap, a situation where the economy is stacked in a low growth environment due to the uncertainty associated with the researching activity.

The objective of this work is to study the impact of the unions' bargaining power on production and wages. We present a model where a competitive final good is produced through two substitutable intermediate goods, one produced by unskilled labor and the other by skilled labor. Potential workers decide at their cost to become skilled or unskilled and, thus, labor supplies are determined endogenously. We find that the reallocation of the labor supplies due to changes in the unskilled (or skilled) unions¿ bargaining power may have a positive impact on the final goods production. At the same time, total labor earnings increase with the unskilled unions¿ bargaining power if the final goods production increases too. We also show that the minimum wage legislation has efects similar to an increase in the bargaining power of the unskilled unions. ; L'objectiu d'aquest treball és estudiar l'impacte del poder negociador de les unions sobre la producció i salaris. Presentem un model on un final competitiu és produït per dos béns intermedis substituible, un produït pel treball inexpert(no qualificat) i altre pel treball expert.