Technological Change, Human Capital, and Income Distribution

9511275斯托克这项研究的目标是探索技术变革、人力和物质资本投资以及收入分配之间的一些联系。该项目第一部分的动机是最近的实证工作结果，这些结果表明，收入分配中的代际流动程度远远低于先前的研究表明的程度。这个项目将一起分析不平等持续存在的重要渠道。以往的理论模型一次一次地对待这些渠道，而完全忽略了一条重要的渠道。该项目这一部分的目标是开发一种理论上易于处理的模型，可以根据美国的数据进行校准。要就各种政策措施在提高儿童收入前景方面的效力展开辩论，关键是要了解产生毅力的机制，这些儿童的家庭背景本身就没有什么乐观的理由。例如，要计算低收入家庭增加对儿童的教育投资的公共支出的好处，需要知道增加多少投资可能会提高儿童的最终收入，在多大程度上公共支出的增加可能会被较低的私人支出所抵消，以及对儿童的任何好处也将在多大程度上影响儿童自己的后代。该项目的第二部分的动机是有证据表明，由于技术偏向的技术变革，美国技术工人的工资溢价在20世纪80年代大幅上升。然而，20世纪80年代的经历并不是独一无二的：美国在本世纪经历了几次技能溢价的长期扩张和压缩。一个随机的动态一般均衡模型将被用来研究这样的扩张和压缩周期，如对随机的、有技能偏见的技术变化的均衡反应。

9511275 Stokey The goal of this research is to explore some of the links between technological change, investments in human and physical capital, and the distribution of income. The first part of the project is motivated by the results of recent empirical work that shows that the degree of intergenerational mobility in the income distribution is far lower than earlier studies had suggested. This project will analyze together the important channels for the persistence of inequality. Pervious theoretical models have treated these channels one at a time ald neglected altogether one important channel. The goal of this part of the project is to develop a theoretically tractable model that can be calibrated to U.S. data. Understanding the mechanisms through which persistence is generated is critical for debates about the efficacy of various policy measures in raising the earnings prospects of children whose family backgrounds alone give little reason for optimism. For example, to calculate the benefits of increased public expenditures on educational investments in children from low-income families, one needs to know how much higher investments are likely to raise the child's eventual earnings, to what extent higher public expenditures are likely to be offset by lower private expenditures, and the extent to which any benefits to the child will also affect the child's own descendants. The second part of the project is motivated by the evidence of a dramatic increase in the wage premium for skilled labor in the U.S. in the 1980s due to skill biased technological change. The experience of the 1980s was not unique, however: the U.S. has seen several extended periods of expansion and compression in the skill premium during this century. A stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model will be used to study such periods of expansion and compression as equilibrium responses to stochastic, skill biased, technological change.