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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
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Issue of 2005‒11‒12
fifteen papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Universitá degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza |
| By: | Lorenzo Cappellari |
| Abstract: | Using microdata on the 1995 cohort of Italian high school graduates, this paper studies the relationship between the type of high school attended (general versus technical; private versus public) and indicators of subsequent performance. Simultaneity issues that potentially bias this type of exercise are tackled by instrumental variables. Results indicate that the type of high school attended greatly depends upon the family of origin and prior school performance. General high schools are found to increase the probability of transition to university and to improve performance once at university. On the other hand, private high schools appear to be associated with lower academic performance. Technical schools improve the quality of the school-to-work transition, both in terms of participation and employment probabilities. |
| Keywords: | high school types, academic and economic performance, endogeneity |
| JEL: | I21 J24 C35 |
| Date: | 2004–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpc:wplist:wp03_04&r=hrm |
| By: | Michael Boozer (Economic Growth Center, Yale University); Gustav Ranis (Economic Growth Center, Yale University); Frances Stewart; Tavneet Suri |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the two-way relationships between Economic Growth (EG) and Human Development (HD), building on an earlier work by Ranis, Stewart, and Ramirez (2000). Here, we show that HD is not only a product of EG but also an important input to it. The paper develops new empirical strategies to estimate the strength of the two-way chains connecting HD and EG. Building on existing growth literature, we explore the empirical determinants of positive growth trajectories running from HD to EG and find that HD plays an essential role in explaining growth trajectories. Our findings point to the empirical relevance of endogenous growth models in general, and threshold effect models in particular. We also develop a measure of the strength of the EG to HD relationship and explore some of its empirical determinants. A strong sequencing implication of our findings is that HD must be given priority for the achievement of both higher EG as well as HD. |
| Keywords: | Human Development, Economic Growth, Threshold Models |
| JEL: | O15 O57 C23 |
| Date: | 2003–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:874&r=hrm |
| By: | Guido Ascari (University of Pavia); Valeria Di Cosmo (University of Pavia) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the determinants of TFP for Italian regions. We find strong evidence in favour of the factors commonly suggested by the theoretical literature. In particular, R&D expenditures and the number of researchers are positively related to regional TFP. Moreover, human capital is an important determinant of TFP. Finally, we find a strong difference between Northern and Southern regions, particularly regarding the effect of research activity and social capital. Our results are robust across different estimation methods. |
| Keywords: | Total factor productivity, Italian regions, panel data, human capital, social capital |
| JEL: | O47 C23 R11 |
| Date: | 2005–11–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0511009&r=hrm |
| By: | David H. Autor; Susan Houseman |
| Abstract: | A disproportionate share of low-skilled U.S. workers is employed by temporary help firms. These firms offer rapid entry into paid employment, but temporary help jobs are typically brief and it is unknown whether they foster longer-term employment. We draw upon an unusual, large-scale policy experiment in the state of Michigan to evaluate whether holding temporary help jobs facilitates labor market advancement for low-skilled workers. To identify these effects, we exploit the random assignment of welfare-to-work clients across numerous welfare service providers in a major metropolitan area. These providers feature substantially different placement rates at temporary help jobs but offer otherwise similar services. We find that moving welfare participants into temporary help jobs boosts their short-term earnings. But these gains are offset by lower earnings, less frequent employment, and potentially higher welfare recidivism over the next one to two years. In contrast, placements in direct-hire jobs raise participants' earnings substantially and reduce recidivism both one and two years following placement. We conclude that encouraging low-skilled workers to take temporary help agency jobs is no more effective - and possibly less effective - than providing no job placements at all. |
| JEL: | I38 J20 J30 J40 |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11743&r=hrm |
| By: | Laurent Gobillon; Harris Selod; Yves Zenou |
| Abstract: | The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis (SMH) argues that low-skilled minorities residing in U.S. inner cities experience poor labor-market outcomes because they are disconnected from suburban job opportunities. This assumption gave rise to an abundant empirical literature which confirmed this hypothesis. Surprisingly, however, it is only recently that theoretical models have emerged, which probably explains why the mechanisms of spatial mismatch have long remained unclear and not properly tested. In this survey, we present relevant facts, review the theoretical models of spatial mismatch, confront their predictions with available empirical results, and indicate which mechanisms deserve further empirical tests. |
| Keywords: | ghettos, urban unemployment, segregation, discrimination |
| JEL: | J15 J41 R14 |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lea:leawpi:0510&r=hrm |
| By: | P R Agénor |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the allocation of public spending between education services and infrastructure investment in an endogenous growth model where public capital in infrastructure affects the process of human capital accumulation. The balanced growth path is derived and the dynamics associated with a budget-neutral reallocation of spending from education to infrastructure are studied through numerical simulations. The growth-maximizing tax rate is shown to depend only on the production technology (as in standard flow models of public expenditure), whereas the optimal share of infrastructure investment depends also on the "productiveness" of infrastructure (relative to education services) in the schooling technology. |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:man:cgbcrp:61&r=hrm |
| By: | Titas Bandopadhyay (Bagnan College) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to re-examine the impact of universal education policy on the incidence of child labour and on the adult unemployment in a job-search model. The paper assumes the double role played by the universal education programme. It raises the number of school going children on the one hand and it affects the potential supply of child labour on the other hand. It has been found that govt’s free education policy for the rural sector only, for the urban sector only and for the both of the two sectors lowers the incidence of child labour and accentuates the problem of adult urban unemployment. Our findings differ from that obtained in Chowdhuri and Mukhopadhaya (2003), where we find that free education policy intensifies the problem of child labour. |
| Keywords: | UNIVERSAL EDUCATION, CHILD LABOUR, ADULT LABOUR |
| JEL: | C6 D5 D9 |
| Date: | 2005–11–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpge:0511002&r=hrm |
| By: | Sarbajit Chaudhuri (Dept. of Economics, Calcutta University) |
| Abstract: | The paper analyzes the implications of a subsidy policy on education and different liberalized trade and investment policies on the incidence of child labour in a developing economy in terms of a three-sector general equilibrium model with informal sector and child labour. The supply function of child labour is endogenously determined. The paper shows that different policies, if undertaken concurrently, may produce mutually contradictory effects, thereby producing little or no impact on the incidence of child labour. The paper provides a theoretical answer as to why the incidence of child labour has not significantly declined in the developing economies in spite of economic development and globalization. |
| Keywords: | Child labour, general equilibrium, informal sector, education subsidy, trade liberalization |
| JEL: | F10 J10 J13 I28 |
| Date: | 2005–11–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0511010&r=hrm |
| By: | Sarbajit Chaudhuri (Dept. of Economics, Calcutta University) |
| Abstract: | The paper is purported to analyze the impact of skill formation on the skilled-unskilled wage inequality using a few variants of the HOS-type framework. It shows that the effect of skill formation on the wage inequality depends crucially upon the technologies of production of the economy and institutional nature of the markets for unskilled labour. In the extreme case when all unskilled labour markets are distorted any attempt of skill formation unequivocally accentuates the wage gap and may increase the level of unemployment of unskilled labour. These results point out that the empirical evidence as found in Beyer, Rojas and Vergara (1999) and the World Development Report (1995) that skill formation has contributed in reducing the skilled-unskilled wage gap in some developing countries lack solid theoretical bearing. The paper suggests that institutional reform programs, designed for the removal of labour market distortions, should be given high priority along with skill improvement measures to improve the skilled-unskilled wage inequality in the developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Skilled labour, unskilled labour, wage inequality, skill formation, institutional reform programs |
| JEL: | D50 J31 I28 |
| Date: | 2005–11–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0511009&r=hrm |
| By: | james smith (rand corporation) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with a number of issues about immigrants to the United States and their education. In part reflecting the reasons why they come in America, immigrants are more highly represented in both the lowest and highest rungs of the education ladder. On average immigrants have less schooling than the native born, a schooling deficit that reached 1.3 years in 2002. Perhaps as important as the average difference between immigrants and the native-born population, there is considerable diversity in the schooling accomplishments among different immigrant sub-groups. The education of new European and Asian immigrants is higher than that of native-born Americans, while the typical Latino immigrant continues to trail the native-born by about four years of schooling on average. The education gap of new recent immigrants did rise modestly over the last 60 years. This increase was higher among men than among women and is entirely accounted for the increasing fraction of immigrants who are illegal. Legal immigrants appear to have about the same amount of schooling as native-born Americans do, and in the top of the schooling hierarchy have a good deal more. Finally, I find that the concern that educational generational progress among Latino immigrants has lagged behind other immigrant groups is largely unfounded. |
| JEL: | J |
| Date: | 2005–11–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0511004&r=hrm |
| By: | Stephanie Seguino |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the possibility that unregulated FDI flows are causally implicated in the decline in labor productivity growth in semi-industrialized economies. These effects are hypothesized to operate through the negative impact of firm mobility on worker bargaining power and thus affecting wages. Downward pressure on wages can reduce the pressure on firms to raise productivity in defense of profits, contributing to a low wageÐlow productivity trap. This paper presents empirical evidence, based on panel data fixed effects and GMM estimation for 37 semi-industrialized economies, that supports the causal link between increased firm mobility and lower wages, as well as slower productivity growth over the period 1970Ð2000. |
| Date: | 2005–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_423&r=hrm |
| By: | Maciej Bukowski (Warsaw School of Economics, Institute for Structural Research); Piotr Lewandowski (Warsaw School of Economics, Institute for Structural Research) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the determinants of the flows out of employment in Poland using multinomial logit model based on the individual LFS panel data covering the 1997-2004 period. It focuses on the influence of the personal characteristics, macroeconomic environment, industry restructuring and labor market institutions on the individual's labor market prospects. Special attention is devoted to social security benefits and pensions as co-determinants of labor market behavior of older workers. |
| Keywords: | Labor dynamics, transition economies, job destruction, multinomial logit |
| JEL: | J2 H31 |
| Date: | 2005–11–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0511007&r=hrm |
| By: | Josse Delfgaauw (Faculty of Economics, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | Using survey data of public sector employees in the Netherlands, this paper shows that workers' satisfaction with various job domains not only affects whether but also where workers search for another job. An intuitive pattern emerges. Workers try to leave their current employer when their job search is instigated by dissatisfaction with an organisation-specific job domain, like management. Conversely, more job-specific problems, like a lack of autonomy, lead workers to opt for another position within their current organisation. Dissatisfaction with job domains which may have an industry-specific component, such as job duties, drives workers out of their industry. These findings suggest that on-the-job experience provides workers with information about the quality of their own job as well as of other jobs in their organisation and industry. |
| Keywords: | Job search; job satisfaction; public sector employees |
| JEL: | J28 J45 J63 M54 |
| Date: | 2005–10–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20050097&r=hrm |
| By: | Fabio Feriozzi |
| Abstract: | In a duopoly model I study the effects of increased competitive pressure on the implicit incentives provided by career concerns. By building a good reputation, managers are able to capture on the labor market part of the profits that they produce in excess with respect to less talented managers. Increased competition, then, has an ambiguous effect: it raises the reputational concern to the extent that it makes to hire a good manager more valuable. The threat of a hostile takeover is then introduced and it is shown to reduce managerial salary while having a potentially negative effect on ex ante incentives. In particular, it is argued that if alternative governance systems are already available, the threat of a hostile takeover can be harmful. |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we056029&r=hrm |
| By: | Philippe De Vreyer (DIAL, Paris); Javier Herrera (DIAL, Paris) |
| Abstract: | We test the effect of local geographic endowment of capital on household growth in living standards in rural Peru, using a four years unbalanced panel data set. Our theoretical model of household consumption growth allows for the effect of community variables to modify the returns to augmented capital in the household production function. Three different sources of data are used: the ENAHO 1997-2000 household surveys, the population census of 1993 and the district infrastructure census of 1997. Altogether the addition of these different data sources makes an unusually rich data set, at least when considered with developing country standards. As in Jalan and Ravallion (2002), we use a quasi-differencing method to identify the impact of locally determined geographic and socioeconomic variables, while removing unobserved household and community level fixed effects. GMM are then used to estimate the model parameters. Several significant interesting results appear, confirming that private consumption growth depends on local geographic variables. |
| JEL: | C33 H23 I18 I32 I38 |
| Date: | 2005–10–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:124&r=hrm |