| 摘要: | 不論是理論模型（Lucas (1988) 和 Romer (1990)）或實證研究（Levine et al. (1992) 和 Barro and Lee (1993)），均闡明人力資本對經濟成長的重要性。雖然肯定人力資本促進經濟繁榮的文獻繁多，探討人力資本形成過程的研究卻相對較少。然而，與人力資本形成息息相關的高等教育在二十世紀有明顯的擴充。明確地說，從西元1900年到2000年，大專院校學生人數與大專院校學齡人口總數的比值從百分之一成長到百分之二十。另一個更驚人的數值顯示學生人數從五十萬增長到十億（Schofer and Meyer (2005)）！Riddle (1990, 1993)則用大學建構的成長率來看高等教育的擴充現象。她發現從西元1200年到法國革命期間僅有緩慢的成長率；之後到第二次世界大戰成長率略有增加，而在第二次世界大戰之後成長率有顯著的增加。高等教育在二十世紀快速擴充的現象引發幾個問題。第一，會提供「太多」高等教育嗎？究竟大專院校的普及是幫助人力資本累積與社會福祉的提升或稀釋教育資源與學習動機而造成福利水準下降？此外，不同的經濟發展程度是否應對應不同的大專教育供給程度？最後，決策者應如何做才能提供最適的大專教育？在本計畫，申請者藉由一個三期模型來探討上述問題。在第每一期人們有一單位的時間可配置做人力資本的投資或休閒。此模型的特色之一是依據 Driskill and Horowitz (2002) 以及 Arcalean and Schiopu (2010)等層級人力資本（hierarchical human capital）考慮不同層級教育可培育不同技能。舉例來說，初等及中等教育傳授基本知識，而大專教育則培育專業技能。本文主要目的有三。第一藉由模型解釋高等教育擴張現象，第二藉由模型決定最適高等教育供給量，第三由模型結果探討政策意涵。 The significance of human capital for economic growth has been clearly demonstrated through formal theoretical models (for example, Lucas (1988) and Romer (1990)) as well as rigorous empirical studies (for example, Levine et al. (1992) and Barro and Lee (1993)). While existing work has clearly identified the crucial role of human capital for promoting economic prosperity, there has been relatively little attention devoted to studying the process of human capital formation. This is surprising since we observe a worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. To be specific, from 1900 to 2000, the ratio of tertiary students to college-age people had grown from one percent to 20 percent. Or, more strikingly, with the number of students increased from 500,000 to approximately 100 million (Schofer and Meyer (2005))! Alternatively, Riddle (1990, 1993) examines the pattern of the rates at which universities were founded around the world. Riddle finds a very slow rate of new university founded up between 1200 and the French Revolution, followed by an increased rate until World War II, and a dramatically increased rate of university creation thereafter. This observation raises some important questions. First, could there be too much of a good thing? In particular, does the expansion of higher education lead to accumulation of human capital and higher welfare or dilute education resources and cause shirking behavior and lower welfare? In addition, do differences in degree of economic development affect optimal extent of higher education? Last but not least, what should the policy maker do to achieve the optimal extent of higher education? In this project, we develop a three-period model of human capital accumulation which attempts to answer these questions. In each period, individuals are endowed with one unit of time to split between investment in human capital and leisure. In contrast to previous research which assumes that human capital is homogeneous, we follow the hierarchical human capital literature (Driskill and Horowitz (2002) and Arcalean and Schiopu (2010)) assuming that there are “fundamental” knowledge and “specialized” ability. Specifically, fundamental knowledge is acquired through primary and secondary schooling while specialized ability is learned via tertiary education. To sum up, the objective of the proposed project is threefold. First, construct a theoretical framework capable to explain the expansion of higher education. Second, apply the model to investigate the determination of optimal provision of higher education. Third, draw policy implications from both time-series and cross-sectional dimensions. To be specific, we can discuss the optimal university admission rate for a given country along the process of economic development. Alternatively, we can examine the optimal provision of higher education among countries at a specific time point. 研究期間：10008 ~ 10107 |
