Modern theories of economic growth emphasize the role of research and development (R&D) activities
in determining a society's standard of living. In some advanced economies, however, higher education
costs and the level of indebtedness among graduates have increased dramatically during recent years.
Student loans are evident throughout the Western world, particularly in the United States, and within
the bio-medical sciences.
In this paper the authors develop a basic model of economic growth in order to investi-gate the effects
of biomedical graduates indebtedness on the allocation of human re-source in the R&D activities, and
thus on the process of economic growth. Using this modified model to understand the consequences of
the rising cost in biomedical educa-tion, we derive a 'science-growth curve' (a relation between the
share of pure researcher and the economy rate of growth), and we find two possible effects of
biomedical stu-dent indebtedness on economic growth: specifically, a composition effect and a productivity
effect. First, we outline the Romer's classical growth model, and we apply it to a 'biomedical'
knowledge-based economy, and second, the model is developed by factoring the difference between
pure and applied biomedical research.
The 'biomedical science sector' is one of the key pillars of modern knowledge-based economy. The
costs of higher education in biomedical sciences and the graduates level of indebtedness represent, not
only a great problem of equality of opportunity, but also a serious threat to future prosperity of the
advanced economies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/6633 |
| Date | 10 May 2015 |
| Creators | Ferretti, F., McIntosh, Bryan, Jones, S. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Accepted manuscript |
| Rights | © 2015 Elsevier. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
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