IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v48y2016i53p5186-5200.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The interactive effects of human capital and quality of life on economic growth

Author

Listed:
  • Qin Fan
  • Stephan J. Goetz
  • Jiaochen Liang

Abstract

To bridge the gap in the quality of life (QOL) and economic growth literature and understand the reinforcing effects of QOL and human capital on economic development, we examine the interactive effects of these two factors on wage growth from 2000 to 2007 at the county level across the United States. First, a Rosen–Roback model is employed to estimate implicit values of amenities including climate, clean air and other natural attributes, which are used to generate QOL indices. Second, QOL, human capital represented by the share of college graduates, and their interaction serve as key variables in the wage growth model. An instrumental variable approach and location fixed effects are used to address endogeneity of human capital and control for location-specific unobservable characteristics. Results suggest that human capital and QOL significantly contribute to economic growth and the growth effects are even larger in nonmetropolitan counties. Importantly, we find that the effect of human capital on growth is larger in high-QOL counties and QOL enhances the effect of human capital on growth. Our results provide empirical support for community development strategies through providing utility-enhancing amenities that improve QOL and retain human capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Qin Fan & Stephan J. Goetz & Jiaochen Liang, 2016. "The interactive effects of human capital and quality of life on economic growth," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(53), pages 5186-5200, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:48:y:2016:i:53:p:5186-5200
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2016.1173180
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2016.1173180
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2016.1173180?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yu Sang Chang & Moon Jung Kim & Su Min Kim & Sung Jun Jo, 2023. "The Offsetting Impact of Dependency and Urbanization on Mean Years of Schooling: A Scaling Analysis of 97 Countries," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(2), pages 21582440231, April.
    2. Youngjin Woo & Euijune Kim & Jaewon Lim, 2017. "The Impact of Education and R&D Investment on Regional Economic Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Stephan J. Goetz & Meri Davlasheridze & Yicheol Han & David A. Fleming-Muñoz, 2019. "Explaining the 2016 Vote for President Trump across U.S. Counties," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(4), pages 703-722, December.
    4. Roseline Tapuwa Karambakuwa & Ronney Ncwadi & Andrew Phiri, 2020. "The human capital–economic growth nexus in SSA countries: what can strengthen the relationship?," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 47(9), pages 1143-1159, July.
    5. Goetz, Stephen & Partridge, Mark & Stephens, Heather, 2017. "The Economic Status of Rural America in the Trump Era," MPRA Paper 77830, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Moutinho, Victor & Santos de Oliveira, Helena M. & Viana Espinosa de Oliveira, Henrique & Puime Guillén, Félix, 2023. "The augmented and integrative model of economic growth: Theoretical and empirical evidence from USA," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Liang, Jiaochen & Goetz, Stephan J., 2018. "Technology intensity and agglomeration economies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10), pages 1990-1995.
    8. Jing Wang & Yubing Xu, 2021. "Internet Usage, Human Capital and CO 2 Emissions: A Global Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-16, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:48:y:2016:i:53:p:5186-5200. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.