Testing the Technology of Human Capital Production: A General‐to‐Restricted Framework
提出一个从一般到受限的检验程序，用于测试人力资本生产函数的具体形式，发现儿童身高和认知技能的生产技术既非对数线性也非参数线性，而是过去与当前投入互补。
Abstract Studies of childhood development have suggested human capital is accumulated in complex and nonlinear ways. Nonetheless, empirical analyses of this process often impose a linear functional form. This paper investigates which technology assumptions matter in quantitative models of human capital production. I propose a general‐to‐restricted procedure to test the production technology, placing constraints on a modified McCarthy function, from which transcendental, constant elasticity of substitution, log‐linear and linear models are obtained as special cases. Applying the procedure to data on child height from the Young Lives surveys, as well as cognitive skills, I find that the technology of human capital production is neither log‐linear nor linear‐in‐parameters; rather, past and present inputs act as complements. I recommend that maintained hypotheses underlying functional form choices should be tested on a routine basis.