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A Century of Human Capital and Hours

Author

Listed:
  • Diego Restuccia
  • Guillaume Vandenbroucke
Abstract
An average person born in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century completed 7 years of schooling and spent 58 hours a week working in the market. By contrast, an average person born at the end of the twentieth century completed 14 years of schooling and spent 40 hours a week working. In the span of 100 years, completed years of schooling doubled and working hours decreased by 30 percent. What explains these trends? We consider a model of human capital and labor supply to quantitatively assess the contribution of exogenous variations in productivity (wage) and life expectancy in accounting for the secular trends in educational attainment and hours of work. We find that the observed increase in wages and life expectancy account for 80 percent of the increase in years of schooling and 88 percent of the reduction in hours of work. Rising wages alone account for 75 percent of the increase in schooling and almost all the decrease in hours in the model, whereas rising life expectancy alone accounts for 25 percent of the increase in schooling and almost none of the decrease in hours of work.

Suggested Citation

  • Diego Restuccia & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2012. "A Century of Human Capital and Hours," Working Papers tecipa-450, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-450
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    6. Diego Restuccia & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2013. "The Evolution Of Education: A Macroeconomic Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 915-936, August.
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. A Century of Human Capital and Hours
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2012-04-01 21:01:14

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    Cited by:

    1. Diego Restuccia & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2014. "Explaining Educational Attainment across Countries and over Time," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 824-841, October.
    2. Georg Duernecker & Berthold Herrendorf, 2015. "On the Allocation of Time - A Quantitative Analysis of the U.S. and France," CESifo Working Paper Series 5475, CESifo.
    3. Diego Restuccia & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2014. "Explaining Educational Attainment across Countries and over Time," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 824-841, October.
    4. Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti & Delalibera, Bruno Ricardo, 2016. "Economic growth and complementarity between stages of human capital," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 779, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    5. Melvin Stephens, Jr. & Desmond J. Toohey, 2018. "The Impact of Health on Labor Market Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from MRFIT," NBER Working Papers 24231, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sánchez-Romero, Miguel & d׳Albis, Hippolyte & Prskawetz, Alexia, 2016. "Education, lifetime labor supply, and longevity improvements," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 118-141.
    7. Edgar Cruz & Xavier Raurich, 2020. "Leisure time and the sectoral composition of employment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 198-219, October.
    8. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2017. "The Genesis of the Golden Age: Accounting for the Rise in Health and Leisure," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 132-151, March.
    9. Delalibera, Bruno Ricardo & Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti, 2019. "Early childhood education and economic growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 82-104.
    10. Kong, Y.-C. & Ravikumar, B. & Vandenbroucke, G., 2018. "Explaining cross-cohort differences in life-cycle earnings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 157-184.
    11. Holger Strulik & Katharina Werner, 2016. "50 is the new 30—long-run trends of schooling and retirement explained by human aging," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 165-187, June.
    12. Miguel Sánchez-Romero & Gemma Abio & Concepció Patxot & Guadalupe Souto, 2018. "Contribution of demography to economic growth," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 27-64, March.
    13. Lee, Velma & Viale, Ariel M., 2023. "Total factor productivity in East Asia under ambiguity," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Schooling; hours of work; productivity; life expectancy; trends; United States;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

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