Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/109330 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
ADB Economics Working Paper Series No. 149
Publisher: 
Asian Development Bank (ADB), Manila
Abstract: 
This paper presents a theoretical model to analyze the effects of technology change on growth rates of income and human capital in the uncertain environments of technology. The uncertainty comes from two sources; the possibility of a technology advance and the characteristics of new technologies. We set up an overlapping generations model in which young agents invest in both width and depth of human capital in order to adopt new technologies. The model develops explicitly the micro-mechanism of the role of human capital in adopting new technologies as well as that of the process of human capital production in uncertain environments. In our model, a higher level for width of human capital relative to the level of depth leads one country to a higher growth path. We also show that an economy can have different growth paths depending on the initial structure of human capital and the uncertainty about the nature of new technologies. In particular, new technologies with more uncertain characteristics may adversely affect human capital accumulation and income growth, leading the economy to a low growth trap.
Subjects: 
education
endogenous growth
human capital
technology adoption
JEL: 
J24
O33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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