No. 3/2011: Accumulation
of education and regional income growth: Limited human capital effects in
Norway Abstract Accumulation of education and geographic
concentration of educated people in cities are expected to generate urban
income growth. New economic geography predicts income divergence across
regions. We investigate the dynamic process of accumulating tertiary education
and regional income growth in Norway during the past four decades. The
expansion of smart cities goes along with catching up of education level in
the periphery and overall the education levels converge. Income levels also
are shown to converge in distribution analysis using Kernel functions and
first order Markov chains. However, the movements in the income distribution
are unrelated to the accumulation of education. The hypothesis of equal
income transition probabilities across subgroups of regions with different
increases in education cannot be rejected. We conclude that accumulation of
education has not been important for the pattern of income growth. Catching
up from low income is not driven by education and income growth has not taken
off in cities with increasing education level. |