Human Capital in Cities (News and Research 178)
Are cities losing their vitality? Exploring human capital in Chinese cities
An interesting application of human capital be combining education and income through the Mincer equation to understand the development of cities. It moves us beyond population as the only measure of shrinking cities. By proposing the alternative indicator, average human capital (HC), to investigate city vitality, the improved measurement relaxes the traditional assumption that HC has a linear relation with schooling and combine inputs with outputs of HC by considering the heterogeneity of returns to schooling of each city. A comprehensive dataset calculating average HC level for each city in the year of 2000, 2005 and 2010 was constructed. The results suggest that city shrinkage might not be so serious as emphasized in previous literature based on population decline. But average HC across Chinese cities has been diverging since 2005.
See also:
Moretti, Human capital externalities in cities
Rauch, Productivity gains from geographic concentration of human capital
Berry and Glaeser. The divergence of human capital levels across cities
Shapiro, Smart cities: quality of life, productivity, and the growth effects of human capital
Quality of life experienced by human capital: An assessment of European cities
Human capital externalities: Evidence from the transition economy of Russia
Other:
Global Economic Prospects: Slow Growth, Policy Challenges
Uzbek President signs law “On Preschool Education and Upbringing”
Russian journals retract more than 800 papers after ‘bombshell’ investigation
Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits
Addressing High School Dropouts with a Scalable Intervention: The Case of PODER
Sultan Qaboos: Architect of modern Oman – Under the Sultan, Oman went from 3 schools to universal enrollment in a generation
Education, economics and public policy 