Human Capital and the Wealth of Nations†

Modifiable factors associated with cognitive performance in Chinese adolescents: a national environment-wide association study

Growing evidence exists about the candidate factors of childhood cognitive performance, but mainly limited to single-exposure studies. We sought to systematically and simultaneously identify and validate a wide range of potential modifiable factors for childhood cognitive performance. We used data from five waves of data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS-2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018). Our analytical sample was restricted to those children aged 2-5 at baseline with valid exposure information. A total of 80 modifiable factors were identified. Childhood cognitive performance was assessed using vocabulary and mathematics test at wave 5. We used an environment-wide association study (EnWAS) to screen all exposure-outcome associations independently and used the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) variable selection algorithm to identify factors associated with cognitive performance. Multivariable linear model was then used to evaluate causal relationships between identified factors and cognitive performance. Of the 1305 participants included in the study (mean ± SD, 3.5 ± 1.1 years age at baseline, 45.1% girls). Eight factors were retained in the LASSO regression analysis. Six factors across community characteristics (percentage of poverty in the community; percentage of children in the community), household characteristics (family size), child health and behaviors (mobile internet access), parenting behaviors and cognitive enrichment (parental involvement in child' s education), and parental wellbeing (paternal happiness) domains were significantly associated with childhood cognition. Using a three-stage approach, this study validates several actionable targets for improving childhood cognitive performance.

Effects of Human Capital on Energy Consumption: The Role of Income Inequality

High-quality human capital (HC) development has a strong influence on achieving a win-win target of economic growth and energy consumption mitigation based on the background of the contemporary "carbon neutrality" constraints in China. We here aim to empirically assess the effect of HC on energy consumption (EC) in 30 provinces of China from 2000 to 2019. Moreover, we broaden the literature by discussing the effect of HC in terms of impact mechanism and nonlinear relationship. Based on methods of the augmented mean group (AMG), the estimation of long-term impacts indicates that the improvement of HC significantly discourages the increase in EC. The intrinsic mechanism shows that the accumulation of HC significantly promotes the decline of EC through economic structure adjustment and technological innovation. Moreover, the threshold model indicates that income equality lifts the inhibitory impact of HC on EC. Accordingly, the development of HC should be involved in the policy preference of China's provincial and national development strategies considering its effectiveness in stimulating the reduction of energy consumption.

The role of health at birth and parental investment in early child development: evidence from the French ELFE cohort

This paper combines a theoretical and an empirical approach to address how health at birth affects child development. Using a simple theoretical model in which parents invest in their children, we identify the mechanisms through which better health at birth can improve child development. We also emphasise how parental socioeconomic status can shape the effects of health at birth. We perform an empirical analysis on a French cohort of children born in 2011, using a unique dataset ELFE. We identify the effect of birth weight and gestational age on child development at 1 year. The results indicate that only gestational age positively affects early development. We find no empirical evidence for the existence of a severity effect, according to which the adverse effects of poor health at birth are higher for children in low-income families or with poorly educated mothers.

The Persuasive Effect of Competence and Warmth on Clothing Sustainable Consumption: The Moderating Role of Consumer Knowledge and Social Embeddedness

Commonly, most companies regard consumer satisfaction to be their major goal. Companies have in the past been focusing on consumer choice in product sales from a utility theory perspective. However, these days, in addition to personal choice, clothing disposal and sustainable consumption are also becoming main concerns of consumers because of growing environmental problems in many parts of the world. In this research, two studies were conducted, and the results of study 1 were economic factors that affected sustainable consumption behavior positively, and competence cognition was the basis of this effect. A philanthropic factor also positively influenced sustainable consumption behavior, and this effect was mediated by warmth cognition. Economic factors influenced consumers’ product disposal behavior not only through competence cognition but also through warmth cognition. Therefore, to encourage disposal behaviors, such as recycling and donation, strategies are needed that can appeal to economic advantages. Study 2 examined the clothing disposal behavior considering environmental economic factors by scenarios. As a result, it was confirmed that environmental economics factors influenced clothing disposal behavior. In addition, we could confirm the moderated mediating effect as well as the moderating effects of knowledge level. The implications of these results and some suggestions for future research are discussed.

Human Capital and the Wealth of Nations†

We reevaluate the role of human capital in determining the wealth of nations. We use standard human capital theory to estimate stocks of human capital and allow the quality of human capital to vary across countries. Our model can explain differences in schooling and earnings profiles and, consequently, estimates of Mincerian rates of return across countries. We find that effective human capital per worker varies substantially across countries. Cross-country differences in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) are significantly smaller than found in previous studies. Our model implies that output per worker is highly responsive to changes in TFP and demographic variables.