Accumulation and Distribution of Human Capital : The Interaction between Individual and Aggregate Variables

The paper analyzes the joint evolution of accumulation and distribution of human capital in an OLG framework. Dynamics arise from the interplay between human capital distribution and individual variables--inherited human capital and inborn ability. Such interaction drives individual investment in human capital and accumulation in the economy. According to the initial distribution the model provides different dynamical behaviors linking growth and inequality; in general economies with a more equal initial distribution grow faster, but other cases are possible. Moreover, since the model provides an endogenous poverty threshold for investing in human capital, the distribution is characterized by multi-modality