NBER Working Papers by Minseong Kim

This paper offers an explanation for observed differences across countries in educational policies and in resulting interpersonal distributions of human capital. We analyze a general-equilibrium model in which, as a result of the apportionment of natural ability, nurturing, and publicly financed education, some people can be well endowed with human capital, while others are poorly endowed. We assume people can choose to be either producers or predators. An An increase in a person's human capital makes predation a less attractive choice for them. As a result, it is possible that by using some of their human capital to educate the poorly endowed people rather than to produce consumables the well endowed people can increase their own consumption. We also find that the nature of the educatio...

This paper shows how predation breaks the links between an economy's aggregate resourceendowment and aggregate consumption and between the interpersonal distribution of endowments and the interpersonal distribution of consumption. We construct a general-equilibrium model in which some people (the privileged) are well endowed with resources and other people (the unprivileged) are poorly endowed with resources and in which each person can choose to be either a producer or a predator. Here, the choice by some to be predators decreases decreases aggregate consumption, both because the predators' resources are wasted and because producers sacrifice production by allocating resources to guarding against predators. Analyzing this model we find that the minimum equilibrium ratio of predators to ...

This paper incorporates the economic theory of predation into the theory of economic growth. The analytical framework is a dynamic general-equilibrium model of the interaction between two dynasties, one of which is a potential predator and the other is its prey. Each generation of each dynasty has to decide how to allocate its endowment of inherited wealth not only to consumption and productive capital, as in standard growth models, but also to either defensive fortifications or offensive weapons. Productive capital forms a basis for accumulation of wealth but in each generation predation can cause both the destruction of wealth and a redistribution of wealth from the prey dynasty to the predator dynasty. We find that, if the current wealth of the potential predator dynasty is small rela...

This paper studies the relation between inequality and welfare in a general- equilibrium model in which people can choose to be either producers or preda- tors. We assume some people (the privileged) are well endowed with human capital and other people (the unprivileged) are poorly endowed with human capital. We analyze how the choice of the privileged between deterring and tolerating predation by the unprivileged depends on the interpersonal distri- bution of human capital. We find that, if the number of unprivileged people is large, but a privileged person doesn't have too much human capital relative to an unprivileged person, then the privileged allocate enough time and effort to guarding against predation to deter the unprivileged from being predators. Otherwise, the privileged tole...