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on Education |
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Issue of 2009‒03‒28
seven papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Lee, Heyung-Jik |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the monetary returns from a baccalaureate degree for the nursing education compared to a diploma across five regions in Canada. It engages me in employing benefit-cost analysis to assess whether the evidence is consistent with implications of human capital theory. Depending on the assumed discount rate and retirement age, the estimated baccalaureate-diploma wage differentials vary in each Canadian region. In this study, I conclude that the decision to invest in one more year of nursing education is economically rational only for the registered nurses who work in Eastern Canada. |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hok:dpaper:206&r=edu |
| By: | Christoph A. Schaltegger; Benno Torgler |
| Abstract: | This comment makes a contribution to Becker and Woessmann’s paper on a human capital theory of Protestant economic history eventually challenging the famous thesis by Max Weber who attributed economic success to a specific Protestant work ethic (Quarterly Journal of Economics 124 (2) (2009) forthcoming). The authors argue for a human capital approach: higher literacy among Protestants of the 19th century (and not a Protestant work ethic) contributed to higher economic prosperity at that point in history. However, the paper leaves the question open as to whether a Protestant specific work ethic existed or exists at all. Are there observable denomination-based differences in work ethic or is Protestantism only a veil hiding the underlying role of education? We use recent data to explore the role of Protestantism on work ethic. The results indicate that today’s work ethic in fact is influenced by denomination-based religiosity and also education. |
| Keywords: | Religion; Work Ethic; Protestantism; Education |
| JEL: | Z12 I20 J24 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2009-06&r=edu |
| By: | Behrman, Jere R.; Murphy, Alexis; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Yount, Kathryn |
| Abstract: | "Many prior studies find significant cross-sectional positive ordinary least squares (OLS) associations between maternal human capital (usually maternal schooling attainment) and children's human capital (usually children's schooling, but in some cases children's nutritional status). This paper uses rich Guatemalan longitudinal data collected over 35 years to explore several limitations of these “standard” estimates. The preferred estimates developed herein suggest that (1) maternal human capital is more important than suggested by the standard estimates; (2) maternal cognitive skills have a greater impact than maternal schooling attainment on children's biological human capital; and (3) for some important indicators of children's human capital, maternal biological capital has larger effect sizes than maternal intellectual capital (schooling and cognitive skills). These results imply that breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty, malnutrition, and intellectual deprivation through investments in women's human capital may be more effective than previously suggested, but it will require approaches that account for dimensions of women's human capital beyond just their schooling. Effective interventions to improve women's biological and intellectual human capital often begin in utero or in early childhood; thus, their realization will take longer than if more schooling were the only relevant channel." from authors' abstract |
| Keywords: | Maternal human capital, Cognitive skills, Nutritional status, Child outcomes, Poverty, Women, |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:850&r=edu |
| By: | Margherita Russo; Anna Natali |
| Abstract: | The essay, presented as opening lecture at the first edition of the Summer School of Local Development “Sebastiano Brusco” (Seneghe, July 2006), outlines the original contribution of Sebastiano Brusco on two related issues: theory and tools for analyzing the industrial structure and for designing development policy. Her we enlighten some distinctive elements apparently running through all Brusco’s work, from the youth years in Sardinia, spent in cultural and political activities alongside Antonio Pigliaru, till the more mature studies on industrial districts. In Brusco’s thought, a central role is played by knowledge, competence, information, education and training: as far as small firms productive systems, industrial districts, and also less developed areas are concerned. An innovative approach to policy design and intervention stems from this view, stressing mechanisms able to diffusely affect capacity, learning and perception of opportunities. |
| Keywords: | development policy; regional policy |
| JEL: | R11 |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:depeco:0605&r=edu |
| By: | Joshua D. Angrist (MIT Department of Economics); Stacey H. Chen (Department of Economics, Royal Holloway, University of London) |
| Abstract: | Military service reduces the civilian work experience of veterans but subsidizes their college attendance through the GI Bill. Estimates of veteran effects using the Vietnam-era draft-lottery show a post-service earnings impact close to zero in 2000, coupled with a marked increase in college attendance. Viewed through the lens of a Minser wage equation, these results are explained by a flattening of the experimence profile in middle age and a modest return to GI Bill schooling. Consistent with Roy-type selection into college for veterans, IV estimates of the returns to GI Bill-funded schooling are well below OLS estimates. These results are unchanged in more general models that allow for nonlinear returns to schooling and possible effects of military service on health. |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hol:holodi:0902&r=edu |
| By: | Veenman, J.; Heij, C. (Erasmus Econometric Institute) |
| Abstract: | Immigration tends to have a mitigating effect on the socioeconomic gender gap among immigrants. To explain this finding, we propose a gender convergence hypothesis that states that migration to a modern ‘open’ society offers women the opportunity to improve their position relative to that of men. In such a society, there are (almost) equal chances to participate in education and paid labor. The equalizing effect will be larger if the immigrants come from less developed regions, since women then have more room to improve their position. However, there may also be countervailing cultural powers within the immigrant group. The gender convergence hypothesis proposed here is tested for immigrants in the Netherlands. Using survey data, we investigate the educational and labor market position of Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, and Antillean males and females. We find convergent trends, particularly among Moroccan immigrants who come from less developed regions in their country of origin and who meet less cultural in-group barriers than, for example, Turkish immigrants. |
| Date: | 2008–08–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureir:1765013052&r=edu |
| By: | Pierre Courtioux (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I) |
| Abstract: | Ce papier analyse la mise en place de dispositifs de prêts à remboursement conditionnel au revenu pour l'éducation du supérieur (PARC) dans un contexte institutionnel particulier qui se caractérise par (i) un système d'accès gratuit en place préalablement et (ii) une grande hétérogénéité dans les diplômes, leurs qualités et leurs coûts se traduisant par des effets sur les carrières des anciens étudiants. Dans ce cas particulier, la mise en place de PARC conduit à un arbitrage entre une amélioration de ‘l'équité' des carrières (en termes de dépenses publiques collectives versus gains individuels), et l'élargissement de ‘trappes à basse éducation'. Sur la base d'un modèle de microsimulation dynamique, nous proposons une évaluation ex ante de l'élargissement de ces trappes. Nous concluons que le risque de cet élargissement reste très faible pour la France. |
| Date: | 2008–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-00369986_v1&r=edu |