Sau-Him Lau "Does mortality decline always lead to an increase in human capital investment?"

时间：2011-11-25

应用经济学报告系列 (1112-13)

题目：Does mortality decline always lead to an increase in human capital investment?
报告人：Sau-Him Paul Lau, University of Hong Kong
时间：2:00-3:30pm, November 29
地点：成人直播新楼217教室

Abstract:
According to conventional wisdom in human capital theory, mortality decline leads to more schooling, because individuals expect to have more years to reap the benefits of human capital investment. This result is shown, analytically or computationally, by many researchers. However, the researchers usually represent mortality reductions by changes in survival parameters, with a parameter change causing mortality changes in different ages simultaneously. We use a general non-parametric approach to the survival function, and apply Volterra derivative for a functional to consider the effect of mortality decline at an arbitrary age. This approach enables us to show that mortality reductions at younger versus older ages have systematically different effects on optimal schooling years. In particular, a mortality decline during the studying phase leads to shorter schooling years, providing a counter-example to the conventional wisdom.

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