Increasing demand for general education, technological innovation, and economic growth: a macroeconomic approach

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K23213
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 0107:Economics, business administration, and related fields
• Research Institution: Fukuyama University
• Principal Investigator: Tanaka Masashi 福山大学, 経済学部, 講師 (40847828)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-08-30 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 教育投資 / 経済成長 / 技術開発

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We develop a simple growth model featuring individuals' choices between general and specific skills, endogenous technological innovation, and a government subsidy for education. We theoretically show that as a country catch up to the world technology frontier, firms invest more in innovation activities. This rises firms' technological uncertainty and, thus, their demands for general skills increases. Using aggregated data for 12 European OECD counties, we calibrate the model and compare the theoretical prediction with the data. In cross-country comparisons, we find that the returns on general skills and the impact of general education expenditure on GDP are higher in countries with higher total factor productivity. These findings support our theoretical argument of the positive relationship between firms' demand for general skills and countries' stages of development.

Free Research Field

経済成長論

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の分析結果は、大学を中心とした一般技能教育拡大の必要性を示している。様々なタスクで使用可能な汎用性の高い一般技能の集積は、技術革新によって生まれた新しい産業への労働移転を容易にし、結果的に経済成長にも貢献する。本研究で使用したヨーロッパ諸国のデータからは、経済の発展度合いが高い国ほど一般技能が不足しがちであるという傾向が観察された。本分析結果は、日本における一般技能教育拡大の議論でも参考にしうるものである。