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Debt-Financed Knowledge Capital Accumulation, Capacity Utilization and Economic Growth

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  • Laura Carvalho
  • Gilberto Tadeu Lima, Gustavo Pereira Serra

Abstract

Motivated to some extent by the empirical significance of student loans to human capital accumulation, this paper incorporates debt-financed knowledge capital accumulation to a demand-led model of capacity utilization and growth. Average labor productivity varies positively with the average stock of knowledge capital across the labor force. Any increase in labor productivity ensuing from knowledge capital accumulation is fully passed on to the real wage, but insufficient aggregate effective demand, by generating unemployment, gives rise to underutilization of the knowledge capital capacity. Both the stability properties and financial fragility (in the Minskyan sense) of the long-run equilibrium outcome depend on how the debt servicing of working households is specified. The same dependence applies to how the rates of physical capital utilization and labor employment (where the latter also measures the rate of knowledge capital utilization) respond to changes in the ratio of working households’ debt to physical capital

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Carvalho & Gilberto Tadeu Lima, Gustavo Pereira Serra, 2017. "Debt-Financed Knowledge Capital Accumulation, Capacity Utilization and Economic Growth," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2017_32, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    • Handle: RePEc:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon32
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    File URL: http://www.repec.eae.fea.usp.br/documentos/Carvalho_Lima_Serra_32WP.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lochner, L. & Monge-Naranjo, A., 2016. "Student Loans and Repayment," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    2. Gilberto Tadeu Lima & Antonio J. A. Meirelles, 2007. "Macrodynamics of debt regimes, financial instability and growth," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 31(4), pages 563-580, July.
    3. Joan Robinson, 1962. "Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-00626-7.
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    6. Mueller, Holger & Yannelis, Constantine, 2017. "Students in Distress: Labor Market Shocks, Student Loan Default, and Federal Insurance Programs," CEPR Discussion Papers 11938, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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    8. Duncan K. Foley, 2003. "Financial fragility in developing economies," Chapters, in: Amitava Krishna Dutt (ed.), Development Economics and Structuralist Macroeconomics, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
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    Cited by:

    1. Gilberto Tadeu Lima & Laura Carvalho, Gustavo Pereira Serra, 2018. "Human Capital Accumulation, Income Distribution and Economic Growth: A Neo-Kaleckian Analytical Framework," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2018_19, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    2. Gustavo Pereira Serra, 2023. "Household debt, student loan forgiveness, and human capital investment: a neo-Kaleckian approach," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 173-206, January.
    3. Gustavo Pereira Serra, 2021. "The First Harrod Problem and Human Capital Formation," Working Papers 2113, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Knowledge capital; debt; capacity utilization; employment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

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