Education, Technological Progress and Economic Growth

• Main Authors: KOH, Winston T. H., LEUNG, Hing-Man
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2005
• Subjects: Education; human capital; technological progress; growth theory; Growth and Development; Macroeconomics; Technology and Innovation
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1210; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/2209/viewcontent/Education_Technological_Progress_and_Economic_Growth_pp.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

An important role of education – and the resultant accumulation of human capital – for a less-developed economy is to facilitate technology diffusion in order for it to catch up with developed economies. This paper presents a model linking education, the accumulation of physical capital and technological progress. In the model, investment in education and the accumulation of physical capital are complementary, and intertwine with the technology progress through related effects on technology diffusion and the expansion of the technology frontier. The allocation of effort to education, the optimal savings rate and the technology gap are endogenously determined in the steady-state balanced growth equilibrium.