Book Description

In this dissertation, I explore human capital accumulation and its implication for economic development. Chapter 1 and 2 focused on the mechanism behind the sustained economic growth of South Korea, which was a war-devastated, aid-recipient country two generations ago but now sells semiconductors and automobiles to the world. I ask how the country shifted its technology to capital-intensive production technique. These chapters consider educational policy change that led to an increase in college graduate. Chapter 3 studies the mechanism behind the divergence in employment between temporary and permanent workers in South Korea. The chapter considers the labor policy change that protects temporary employment. For each chapter, I construct a plant-level panel dataset from a series of censuses and connect it with an industry-level input-output table to consider a spillover effect. Chapter 1 studies how an increase in college graduates has affected the technology shift in South Korea. The analysis is based on the concept of complementarity in technology adoption - i.e., the idea that more adopters increase a marginal adopter's gain. I consider skilled labor as an adoption good needed for technology adoption. If complementarity exists in technology adoption, there could be multiple equilibria, possibly leading to undesirable results from coordination failure. I develop a theoretical framework which predicts that an increase in the adoption good of skilled labor could overcome coordination failure and promote a technology shift. Based on plant-level panel data from 1982-1996, I find that accumulation of more outside human capital, or more adopters, (i) benefits marginal adopting firm's profit and investment, and (ii) promotes the firm's technology shift by increasing the productivity of capital while decreasing that of unskilled workers. This paper contributes to the literature on aggregate growth theory by verifying that outside human capital accumulation and its spillover effect contribute to economic growth. Chapter 2 builds on Chapter 1, where human capital is considered an adoption good, by studying the specific role of human capital. Specifically, I explore whether research and development (R&D) is the channel through which human capital accumulation leads to a technology shift. The analysis is based on previous literature indicating that R&D generates new knowledge and the absorption of outside knowledge. The latter role of R&D, absorptive capacity, matches the concept of complementarity in chapter 1. Based on plant-level panel data, I find that (i) human capital accumulation due to the educational policy change promotes R&D in the manufacturing industries; (ii) the effect of R&D spillovers is increasing in a firm's own R&D, a finding which validates the concepts of absorptive capacity and complementarity; and (iii) more outside R&D promotes a firm's technology shift toward capital-intensity. This paper contributes to the literature on endogenous growth, which so far has focused on R&D spillover's effects on total factor productivity rather than on technology shift, by connecting absorptive capacity with complementarity in technology adoption. Chapter 3 investigates another dimension of human capital: permanent and temporary workers. The labor market in South Korea has witnessed a divergence in employment between permanent and temporary workers. The proportion of permanent workers, which had been stable between 50 and 60 percent for two decades in the 1990s and 2000s, has increased recently to above 70 percent. I point out that legislation requiring firms that hire a worker on a temporary basis for more than two years to offer them permanent status serves as a trigger for the divergence. This legislation limits the advantages (to firms) of flexibility in hiring and capacity for screening new workers. Hence, in a competitive labor market firms expect that other firms are more likely to hire permanent rather than temporary workers. If complementarity exists in permanent employment, the legislation serves as a Big Push to make the divergence happen. Based on plant-level panel data covering 2011-2019, I find that (i) flexibility and screening effect of temporary workers are overwhelmed by human capital effect, and (ii) complementarity in permanent employment holds after the temporary employment protection legislation. This paper deepens the understanding of the recent labor market phenomena in South Korea by adopting the concept of complementarity and a Big Push.