Family Behavior, Human Capital, and the Economy

家庭行为、人力资本和经济

• 批准号: 9010748
• 负责人: Gary Becker
• 金额: $ 10.09万
• 依托单位: National Opinion Research Center
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1990
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1990-08-01 至 1994-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9010748&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Family; Behavior; Human; Capital; Economy

In this accomplishment-based renewal project, Gary Becker will continue his research that links the family to investments in human capital, bequests and other types of physical capital accumulation, economic inequality, and economic growth. One study will be an expansion of A Treatise on the Family. It will include a response to some of the criticisms and discuss several additional issues. Particular attention will be paid to the so-called "Rotten-Kid Theorem", which states that, under certain conditions, beneficiaries of altruists have incentives to behave altruistically to their benefactors, even when beneficiaries are selfish. One defect is that the Treatise does not interact parental altruism with other attitudes of parents towards children. That is, the degree of parental altruism is not fixed. The new work will show that such links between the behavior of children and the degree if parental altruism help overcome various inefficiencies that can result from altruism, such as the so-called "prodigal son" issue. Other work will continue on the relationship between family behavior and economic growth by incorporating endogenous fertility into a neoclassical growth model. In a related study, endogenous fertility is combined with physical capital as well investment in human capital. Two states tend to emerge - one with low human and physical capital, low income, and high fertility - and another with low fertility and high human and physical capital and income. The research will attempt to explain why human capital increases relative to physical capital when countries grow, why fertility declines when countries get richer and why luck and other temporary events may have an effect on whether a country grows or stagnates. Another line of research will be on how the division of labor and specialization with regard to human capital varies with economic growth and other variables. Stressed here will be importance of coordination costs and the extent of general knowledge (since increased accumulation of general knowledge raises the growth rate partly by inducing greater specialization).

在这个以成就为基础的更新项目中，加里·贝克尔将继续他的研究，将家庭与人力资本投资、遗产和其他类型的物质资本积累、经济不平等和经济增长联系起来。其中一项研究将是《关于家庭的论述》的扩展。它将包括对一些批评的回应，并讨论其他几个问题。将特别注意所谓的“烂孩子定理”，该定理指出，在某些条件下，利他主义者的受益人有动机对他们的捐赠者采取利他行为，即使受益人是自私的。一个缺陷是，《论述》没有将父母的利他主义与父母对孩子的其他态度相互作用。也就是说，父母的利他主义程度并不是固定的。这项新工作将表明，孩子的行为与父母利他主义的程度之间的这种联系，有助于克服利他主义可能导致的各种低效，例如所谓的“浪子”问题。其他工作将通过将内生生育率纳入新古典增长模型来继续研究家庭行为和经济增长之间的关系。在一项相关研究中，内生生育率与物质资本以及对人力资本的投资相结合。往往会出现两个国家--一个是低人力和物质资本、低收入和高生育率的国家，另一个是低生育率和高人力和物质资本和收入的国家。这项研究将试图解释为什么当国家增长时，人力资本相对于物质资本会增加，为什么当国家变得更富裕时，生育率会下降，以及为什么运气和其他临时性事件可能会对一个国家的增长或停滞产生影响。另一项研究将是关于人力资本的分工和专业化如何随着经济增长和其他变量而变化。这里将强调协调费用和一般知识范围的重要性(因为增加一般知识的积累提高了增长率，部分原因是导致了更大的专业化)。