Abstract:

Human capital is considered as one of the most important factors in explaining development differences between countries, and as a unique source of long-run permanent economic growth. Therefore, increasing the accumulation of human capital has become an extremely important mission for economies. Theoretical and empirical literature emphasizes that public expenditures can play an important role in increasing human capital accumulation. Therefore, in this study, the effect of public expenditures on human capital accumulation for the case of Turkey was analyzed. Besides per capita income, unemployment and population variables were also included in the estimated model since they are considered as important determinants of human capital accumulation in the literature. Annual data for the period 1960-2019 were used in the analysis. The long-run cointegration relationship between the variables was determined and the long-run cointegration coefficients were obtained by applying FMOLS, DOLS and CCR estimators. Results show that public expenditures negatively affect human capital accumulation. Similarly, the increase in unemployment negatively affects human capital. However, per capita income and population are helpful to promote human capital. Probable causes of empirical outputs for the case of Turkey are further discussed in the study and policy strategies are recommended accordingly.

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