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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Gomes, Orlando |
| Abstract: | The standard two-sector growth model with physical and human capital characterizes a process of material accumulation involving simple dynamics; constant long run growth is observable when assuming conventional Cobb-Douglas production functions in both sectors. This framework is developed under a central planner scenario: it is a representative agent that chooses between consumption and capital accumulation, on one hand, and between allocating human capital to each one of the two sectors, on the other. We concentrate in this second choice and we argue that the outcome of the aggregate model is incompatible with a scenario where individual agents, acting in a market economy, are free to decide, in each time moment, how to allocate their human capital in order to produce goods or to create additional skills. Combining individual incentives, the effort of a central planner (i.e., government) to approximate the decentralized outcome to the optimal result and a discrete choice rule that governs the decisions of individual agents, we propose a growth framework able to generate a significant variety of long term dynamic results, including endogenous fluctuations. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous growth; Human capital; Endogenous business cycles; Discrete choice; Nonlinear dynamics; Chaos. |
| JEL: | C61 O41 E32 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2882&r=hrm |
| By: | Audretsch, David B; Phillips, Ronnie |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we discuss the nature of the university-industry relationship and recommend specific policies to help achieve the goal of greater economic growth. We argue that state-supported research universities can be used to integrate entrepreneurship into state economic development and incubate entrepreneurial companies. Regional entrepreneurship policy is a new strategy that regards economic development as a process that goes from supporting research and development to creating and growing new businesses. Specifically, we believe that an entrepreneurial higher education system is a key to state-level economic policies. There is an opportunity at research universities to combine the human capital talent available on faculties with the needs and expertise of private industry to accelerate entrepreneurship and economic growth. |
| Keywords: | economic development; entrepreneurship; universities |
| JEL: | L26 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6242&r=hrm |
| By: | Booth, Alison L; Coles, Melvyn G; Gong, Xiaodong |
| Abstract: | We model educational investment and labour supply in a competitive economy with home and market production. Heterogeneous workers are assumed to have different productivities both at home and in the workplace. Following Rosen (1983), we show that there are private increasing returns to education at the labour market participation margin. We show that these depend directly on the elasticity of labour supply with respect to wages. Thus the increasing returns to education problem will be most relevant for women or other types with large enough home productivity. We estimate a three equation recursive model of working hours, wages and years of schooling, and find empirical support for the main predictions of the model. |
| Keywords: | home production; labour supply; returns to education |
| JEL: | J22 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6266&r=hrm |
| By: | Trujillo,Lourdes; Gonzalez, Marianela; Estache, Antonio |
| Abstract: | All interested parties seem to agree that it is important to be able to monitor public sector performance at the sectoral level, but most current work based on multi-country databases does not lend itself to country-specific conclusions. This is due to a large extent to major data limitations both on sectoral expenditures and on sectoral outcomes. This paper discusses the related issues and shows what we can do with the current data inspite of the drastic limitations. The main conclusions of the paper are that any efforts to assess country-specific performances in relative terms are likely to be difficult in view of the data problems. A rough sense of performance across sectors can be estimated for groups of countries, allowing some modest benchmarking exercises. These estimates show that low-income countries generally lag significantly behind higher-income countries. Efficiency has improved during the 1990s in energy and education but has not improved significantly in transport. |
| Keywords: | Transport Economics Policy & Planning,Public Sector Expenditure Analysis & Management,Inequality,Economic Theory & Research,Poverty Monitoring & An alysis |
| Date: | 2007–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4219&r=hrm |
| By: | Rosa Dias; Dorrit Posel (Division of Economics,University of KwaZulu-Natal) |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between education and unemployment in Post-Apartheid South Africa, and probes the argument that employment growth has been inhibited particularly by skills constraints. We use probit regression analysis to show that higher education protected against unemployment in both 1995 and 2003, and that overall, the relative benefits to tertiary education rose over the period. We show also that these aggregate trends mask substantial variation among race groups and within race groups, among men and women. However, after taking into account changes in the survey instruments used to measure employment, we find only modest evidence of skills-intensive employment growth. Rather, the increase in formally qualified labour was considerably larger than the increase in demand for skilled and semi-skilled labour over the period, and so unemployment rates even among graduates increased over the period. |
| Keywords: | South Africa: education, unemployment, skills constraints |
| JEL: | A1 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctw:wpaper:9626&r=hrm |
| By: | Christian Belzil (GATE - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - [CNRS : UMR5824] - [Université Lumière - Lyon II] - [Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines]) |
| Abstract: | This papers contains a survey of the recent literature devoted to the returns to schooling within a dynamic structural framework. I present a historical perspective on the evolution of the literature, from early static models set in a selectivity framework (Willis and Rosen, 1979) to the recent literature, stimulated by Keane and Wolpin (1997), and which uses stochastic dynamic programming techniques. After reviewing the literature thoroughly, I compare the structural approach with the IV (experimental) approach. I present their commonalities and I also discuss their fundamental di8erences. To get an order of magnitude, most structural estimates reported for the US range between 4% and 7% per year. On the other hand, IV estimates between 10% and 15% per year are often reported. The discrepancy prevails even when comparable (if not identical) data sets are used. The discussion is focussed on understanding this divergence. The distinction between static and dynamic model specifications is a recurrent theme in the analysis. I argue that the distinction between the IV approach and the structural approach may be coined in terms of a trade o8 between behavioral and statistical assumptions. For this reason, and unless one has very specific knowledge of the true data generating process, it is neither possible, nor sensible, to claim which approach to estimation is more flexible. More precisely, I show that structural and IV approaches differ mainly at the level of i) the compatibility of the underlying models with truly dynamic behavior, ii) the role of heterogeneity in ability and tastes, iii) the consideration of post-schooling opportunities, and (iv) the specification (and interpretation) of the Mincer wage equation. |
| Keywords: | ability bias ; dynamic self-selection ; human capital ; IV estimations ; natural experiments ; returns to education |
| Date: | 2007–04–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00142538_v1&r=hrm |
| By: | David McKenzie (Development Research Group, World Bank); Hillel Rapoport (Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University, CADRE, University of Lille II, and Stanford Center for International Development) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of migration on educational attainments in rural Mexico. Using historical migration rates by state to instrument for current migration, we find evidence of a significant negative effect of migration on schooling attendance and attainments of 12 to 18 year-old boys and of 16 to 18 year-old girls. IV-Censored Ordered Probit results show that living in a migrant household lowers the chances of boys completing junior high-school and of boys and girls completing high-school. The negative effect of migration on schooling is somewhat mitigated for younger girls with low educated mothers, which is consistent with remittances relaxing credit constraints on education investment for the very poor. However, for the majority of rural Mexican children, family migration depresses educational attainment. Comparison of the marginal effects of migration on school attendance and on participation to other activities shows that the observed decrease in schooling of 16 to 18 year olds is accounted for by current migration of boys and increases in housework for girls. |
| Keywords: | Migration, migrant networks, education attainments, Mexico |
| JEL: | O15 J61 D31 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:0601&r=hrm |
| By: | Michel Beinea (University of Luxemburg and Université Libre de Bruxelles); Frédéric Docquier (FNRS and IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain); Hillel Rapoport (Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University, CADRE, Université de Lille 2, and CReAM, University College London) |
| Abstract: | Recent data on international skilled migration define skilled migrants according to education level independently of whether education has been acquired in the home or in the host country. In this paper we use immigrants’ age of entry as a proxy for where education has been acquired. Data on age of entry are available from a subset of receiving countries which together represent more than 3/4 of total skilled immigration to the OECD. Using these data and a simple gravity model, we estimate the age-of-entry structure of skilled immigration and propose alternative brain drain measures by excluding those arrived before age 12, 18 and 22. The results for 2000 show that on average, 68% of the global brain drain is accounted for by emigration of people aged 22 or more upon arrival (78% and 87% for the 18 and 12 year old thresholds, respectively). For some countries this indeed makes a substantial difference. However, cross-country differences are globally maintained, resulting in extremely high correlation levels between corrected and uncorrected rates. Similar results are obtained for 1990. |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:0613&r=hrm |
| By: | Pfeiffer, Friedhelm; Reuß, Karsten |
| Abstract: | In this study, we try to connect the economic literature on human capital formation with findings from neurobiology and psychology on early childhood development and self-regulation. Our basic framework for assessing the distribution of agespecific returns to investment in skills is an elaboration of the model of skill formation from Cunha, Heckman et al. (2006) over the life cycle. Our simulation based evidence illustrates the cumulative and synergetic nature of skill formation, the skill multiplier and the shaping role early childhood has for human capital formation, growth and inequality. |
| Keywords: | Intelligence, self-regulation, human capital, returns to education, life span |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:5503&r=hrm |
| By: | Booth, Alison L; Coles, Melvyn G |
| Abstract: | This paper considers optimal educational investment and labour supply with increasing returns to scale in the earnings function In so doing we develop the work of Rosen (1983), who first highlighted the increasing returns argument that arises because private returns to human capital investment are increasing in subsequent utilization rates. We demonstrate that increasing returns generates task specialisation - individuals choose to become either home specialists or work specialists. With heterogeneous workers, we show for certain types, that a tax on labour income leads to large, non-marginal substitution effects; i.e. those with a comparative advantage in home production are driven out of the market sector. Tax deadweight losses are consequently large. Consistent with the theory, our empirical results, using a cross-country panel, find that gender differences in labour supply responses to tax policy can play an important role in explaining differences in aggregate labor supply across countries. |
| Keywords: | fiscal policy; household production; increasing returns; labour supply |
| JEL: | H24 J13 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6265&r=hrm |
| By: | Tiago Neves Sequeira (Departamento de Gestão e Economia, Universidade da Beira Interior) |
| Abstract: | Using a panel data approach we investigate whether schooling cause health or health cause schooling. We found evidence that supports the influence of the level of health in increases in education and the influence of education growth in health improvements. Both effects are present in poor countries but not in rich ones. |
| Keywords: | Education, Health |
| JEL: | I00 J24 O15 O50 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csh:wpecon:e01/2007&r=hrm |
| By: | Christopher C. Klein |
| Abstract: | To gain analytical insight into whether input resources matter in public education, a Becker/Peltzman/Stigler model of the determination of local educational budgets and outputs by political authorities is constructed. The model results are consistent with empirical findings that resources don’t matter, even when all schools are efficient, if errors in measurement and specification occur. When all outputs are not observed, one cannot distinguish an inefficient school district from one that chooses an idiosyncratic output mix. Blind application of efficiency measurement techniques in this context yields perverse or counterintuitive findings. Interpretation of feasible approaches to education production studies are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Education, Efficiency, Productivity. |
| JEL: | I12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mts:wpaper:200703&r=hrm |
| By: | Josselin Thuilliez (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the link between P. Falciparum malaria - most of malaria morbidity and mortality is due to the malignant Plasmodium Falciparum - and primary education in terms of school performances at the macroeconomic stage. Cross-country regression analysis shows that the relation between school results (measured by repetition and completion rates) and the P. Falciparum malaria index is strong. The results implies that the achievement of the education Millennium Development Goals will require more than just focusing on expenditure in primary education. It does not imply that resources in education are unnecessary but that increasing resources in education and improving education resources management alone are unlikely to be sufficient. This paper suggests that health conditions and especially diseases that alter cognitive capacities of children such as malaria should be taken into account much more seriously. This study also sees the need to place emphasis on research that will improve the quality of interventions to prevent malaria. Specific education expenditure to face Malaria should be examined in addition to health policies. |
| Keywords: | Malaria incidence, human capital, development. |
| JEL: | O15 I10 I20 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:bla07013&r=hrm |
| By: | Kevin H. O'Rourke; Ahmed S. Rahman; Alan M. Taylor |
| Abstract: | Technological change was unskilled-labor-biased during the early Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but is skill-biased today. This fact is not embedded in extant unified growth models. We develop a model of the transition to sustained economic growth which can endogenously account for both these facts, by allowing the factor bias of technological innovations to reflect the profit-maximising decisions of innovators. Endowments dictated that the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution be unskilled-labor biased. The transition to skill-biased technological change was due to a growth in "Baconian knowledge" and international trade. Simulations show that the model does a good job of tracking reality, at least until the mass education reforms of the late nineteenth century. |
| JEL: | F15 J13 J24 N10 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13057&r=hrm |
| By: | Akcomak, Semih (UNU-MERIT); Ter Weel, Bas (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | This research investigates the role of social capital and government intervention in explaining the differences of innovation output and economic growth for regions of the European Union from 1990-2002. Using several measures of social capital and innovation, and the European Union’s Objective 1, 2 and 5b figures for EU regional support, the estimates suggest that EU funding is not significantly contributing to economic outcomes, while social capital is. Investigation of a possible complementary relationship between social capital and government support reveals that regions with higher levels of social capital are more likely to effectively gain from EU regional support programmes. This result implies that aside from the benefits associated with the direct effect of social capital on economic outcomes, social capital appears to be a critical prerequisite for the effective implementation of government programmes. From a policy perspective, it appears to be important to stimulate education to foster human capital formation. When combined, human capital and social capital are likely to yield stronger effects for effective policies which increase economic outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Social capital, Innovation, Economic growth, European Union, Structural funds |
| JEL: | O1 O3 O52 Z13 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2007009&r=hrm |