Measuring human capital divergence in a growing economy

Broxterman, Daniel; Yezer, Anthony M.

doi:10.1016/j.jue.2020.103255

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…This is particularly relevant for the analysis of trends in the spatial inequalities of education given the rapid growth in the overall educational attainment in England and Wales in recent decades (Department for Education, 2019). As recently shown by Broxterman and Yezer (2020) in their analysis for the US, evaluations of spatial inequalities and convergence in human capital critically depend on invariance axiom and the notion of inequality adopted (absolute vs. relative) which justifies the approach taken in this paper where both are considered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Specifically, the level of human capital of areas is measured by the skill intensity ratio (SIR) defined as the ratio between the area's share of the working‐age population with a university degree or higher qualification and the share with a lower educational qualification. Although a proxy and therefore imperfect measure of the local stock of human capital, the SIR measure has been widely used in regional studies to investigate a ample range of topics including the dynamics of human capital (e.g., Broxterman & Yezer, 2020; Elvery, 2010; Hendricks, 2011), spatial wage inequalities (Gianone, 2017; Haskel & Slaughter, 2001), and the link between housing costs and local skills (Broxterman & Yezer, 2015).…”

Section: Data Concepts and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is at the core of evaluations of σ‐convergence which are based on the assessment of time trends in the dispersion of distributions. Adopted in pioneer studies of income distribution and economic growth (Goldsmith, 1957; Kuznets, 1955), σ‐convergence has been applied in many evaluations of spatial inequalities in human capital (e.g., Berry & Glaeser, 2005; Broxterman & Yezer, 2020) and regional incomes (e.g., Magrini, 2004; Rey & Montouri, 1999; Zhang et al, 2019).…”

Section: Data Concepts and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two invariance rules are normally invoked when comparing distributions with different means: the translation invariance axiom, which requires growth to be equally distributed across all units so that absolute differences among them remain constant; and the scale invariance axiom which demands the same relative increase across all units to keep initial inequality unchanged. The use of inequality measures consistent with those axioms has been proved to have important implications when evaluating changes in the distribution of income (Bossert & Pfingsten, 1990; Gerdtham & Johannesson, 2004), health outcomes (Asada, 2010), and also education (Broxterman & Yezer, 2020).…”

Section: Data Concepts and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Recent trends in the spatial distribution of human capital: Are skill levels converging across regions in England and Wales?

Azpitarte

2023

Population Space and Place

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In modern knowledge-based societies human capital is the single most important determinant of regional inequalities in productivity and standards of living. Using a newly constructed data set that allows the analysis of educational attainments at different levels of geography, this paper evaluates spatial inequalities and the degree of convergence in the distribution of human capital across areas in England and Wales during the second decade of the 21st century. Our results show this was a period characterised by a large increase in educational attainment and skill intensity.However, the growth in skill intensity was far from uniform across space.In particular, we find strong evidence of both absolute σ-divergence and β-convergence in the distribution of skills. Thus, even if low-skill areas grew on average more than other areas with higher skill intensity at the start of the period, the stochastic dominance analyses provide strong evidence of an unambiguous increase in absolute inequalities so that by end of the decade the skill gap between low-and high-skill areas had significantly widened. We present new spatial and aspatial evidence that sheds light on those inequalities and the changes in the spatial configuration of human capital over the last decade. Despite the implementation of policies aimed at reducing regional inequalities, many low skill areas struggled to attract talent so that the gap with most skilled areas widened over that period likely contributing to the persistence of the well-documented large spatial economic inequalities in this country. | INTRODUCTIONAddressing local and regional inequalities and the problems of 'leftbehind' places have been a policy concern in the United Kingdom for more than 40 years (Jennings et al., 2021;Tomaney & Pike, 2020).However, despite the various policies and initiatives implemented over that period (Connolly et al., 2021), the United Kingdom continues to be one of the most regionally unbalanced countries in the Western world (Gal & Egeland, 2018;McCann, 2020). This unbalance manifests in large economic and social inequalities that have been linked to a range of structural factors. Prominent among those is the spatial distribution of human capital. This form of capital, normally measured in terms of education, is key to regional development and a large body of empirical literature suggests it is the single most important determinant of regional inequalities in productivity and standards of living (see Fleisher et al., 2010;

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: Data Concepts and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Concepts and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Concepts and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Recent trends in the spatial distribution of human capital: Are skill levels converging across regions in England and Wales?

Azpitarte

2023

Population Space and Place

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“…Rattsø and Stokke argue that the contradictory findings for European and US samples may result from the use of absolute changes in college share in US studies, whereas the European papers analyse relative changes. Similarly, Broxterman and Yezer (2020) have pointed out that absolute divergence in the US has been the result of growth in human capital per worker that has proceeded without relative divergence. At issue is whether the US differences are simply a statistical artefact of growth in the share of college-educated workers over time, or alternatively, if there has been divergence beyond what would be expected if average educational attainment were growing at the same rate in every city.…”

Section: Absolute Versus Relative Divergencementioning

confidence: 99%

Human capital divergence and the size distribution of cities: Is Gibrat’s law obsolete?

Broxterman

Yezer

2020

Urban Studies

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This article studies how the changing geographic distribution of skilled workers in the US affects theoretical models that use Gibrat’s law to explain the size distribution of cities. In the empirical literature, a divergence hypothesis holds that college share increases faster in cities where college share is larger, and a growth hypothesis maintains that the rate of city population growth is also directly related to initial college share. Examining the divergence hypothesis, the classic test for Gibrat’s law is shown to be a test for [Formula: see text]-convergence. Testing shows that there has been absolute, not relative, divergence in human capital since the 1970s. However, the combination of even absolute divergence and the growth hypothesis is shown to violate the condition that a city’s population growth is independent of its size. Additional testing finds that the relation between college share and city growth is concave rather than monotonic. These results imply that stochastic growth models can survive the challenge posed by divergence in the distribution of human capital.

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Patterns of inter- and intra-regional differences in human capital and earnings: Evidence from Finland and Sweden 1987–2015

2021

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Measuring human capital divergence in a growing economy

Cited by 8 publications

References 17 publications

Recent trends in the spatial distribution of human capital: Are skill levels converging across regions in England and Wales?

Recent trends in the spatial distribution of human capital: Are skill levels converging across regions in England and Wales?

Human capital divergence and the size distribution of cities: Is Gibrat’s law obsolete?

Patterns of inter- and intra-regional differences in human capital and earnings: Evidence from Finland and Sweden 1987–2015

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