Two results in balanced‐growth educational policy

Abstract

This paper clarifies and extends two major results in the literature on balanced growth educational policy due to Manning. The first, by noting a relation between the net rate of population growth and the optimal skill ratio, and by allowing the training process to affect fertility, strengthens Manning's result of relatively low wage differentials. The second concerns the optimizing basis for preferential selection of men for training. It is shown that net population growth rates and skill ratios are related for males and females, and that if skilled women increase the supply of easily trainable students, and if unskilled females are less productive then unskilled males, the ‘male preference’ rule may not hold in general.

Notes

My thanks to three referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Any remaining errors are mine.