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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
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Issue of 2006‒07‒09
eleven papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Universita degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza |
| By: | Katsuya Takii (Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University); Ryuichi Tanaka (Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how different education systems affect GDP by influencing the diversity of human capital. We construct an overlapping generation model in which agents are heterogeneous in income and innate ability, and the final goods are produced with differentiated intermediate goods. We analyze an economy in which an income distribution converges to a stationary distribution. It is shown that the diversity of human capital induced by income inequality always lowers the GDP of the next period, while the diversity of human capital induced by heterogeneous ability can increase GDP, if the produced intermediate goods are sufficiently substitutable and firms have a large span of control. Hence, as public education equalizes education resources across households, it mitigates the negative effect of income inequality on GDP, while the effects of ability tracking crucially depend on the production structure of the economy. |
| Keywords: | Span of control, Complementarities, Human capital, Ability tracking |
| JEL: | D31 D72 H42 I22 O11 O15 |
| Date: | 2006–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:0619&r=hrm |
| By: | Torberg Falch (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Sofia Sandgren (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology) |
| Abstract: | We analyze whether the amount of schooling influences intelligence as measured by IQ tests. By use of a novel longitudinal dataset we are able to condition on early cognitive ability to account for selection into non-compulsory schooling when estimating the effect on cognitive ability at age 20. OLS estimates indicate that one year of schooling increases IQ by 2.8-3.5 points (about 0.2 standard deviations). When family income per family member and teacher evaluations of the individuals at age 10 are used as instruments for schooling and early cognitive ability, the return to schooling is estimated to 3.5-3.8 IQ points. |
| Keywords: | Cognitive ability; Education production; Return to schooling |
| JEL: | I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nst:samfok:7306&r=hrm |
| By: | David M. Cutler; Adriana Lleras-Muney |
| Abstract: | There is a large and persistent association between education and health. In this paper, we review what is known about this link. We first document the facts about the relationship between education and health. The education ‘gradient’ is found for both health behaviors and health status, though the former does not fully explain the latter. The effect of education increases with increasing years of education, with no evidence of a sheepskin effect. Nor are there differences between blacks and whites, or men and women. Gradients in behavior are biggest at young ages, and decline after age 50 or 60. We then consider differing reasons why education might be related to health. The obvious economic explanations – education is related to income or occupational choice – explain only a part of the education effect. We suggest that increasing levels of education lead to different thinking and decision-making patterns. The monetary value of the return to education in terms of health is perhaps half of the return to education on earnings, so policies that impact educational attainment could have a large effect on population health. |
| JEL: | I1 I2 |
| Date: | 2006–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12352&r=hrm |
| By: | Karlsson, Charlie (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Nyström, Kristina (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role of knowledge for successful entrepreneurship. The paper explicitly discusses the role of accessibility to university and company R&D for new firm formation. Company R&D is assumed to contain a higher share of R&D directed towards generating technological knowledge. Hence, the accessibility to such R&D are expected to have a stronger influence on new firm formation than the accessibility to university R&D. Since knowledge can also be assumed to be spatially bounded and diffuses in geographical space, it is argued that local interaction, measured by intra-municipality accessibility to knowledge, have a stronger influence on new firm formation than interregional interaction. In the empirical analysis data on new firm formation in 288 Swedish municipalities and accessibility to university and company R&D for 1997 and 1999 are used. We find that accessibility to company R&D have a stronger impact on new firm formation than accessibility to university R&D. We also find that close knowledge interactions are more important for new firm formation than long distance knowledge interactions. Accessibility to inter-regional company R&D has even a negative impact on new firm formation. |
| Keywords: | knowledge; accessibility; regional; entrepreneurship; Sweden |
| JEL: | L10 R11 |
| Date: | 2006–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0070&r=hrm |
| By: | Guido de Blasio (Bank of Italy, Research Dept.); Giorgio Nuzzo (Bank of Italy, Branch of L'Aquila) |
| Abstract: | Putnam (1993) argues that (i) center-northern Italy has developed faster than southern Italy because the former was better endowed with social capital; and (ii) that the endowments of social capital across Italian territories have been highly persistent over centuries. This paper provides an empirical investigation of Putnam’s case. To evaluate the relevance of social capital, we present a test based on worker productivity, entrepreneurship, and female labor market participation. Using as instruments regional differences in civic involvement in the late ninetieth century and local systems of government in the middle age, we show that social capital does have economic effects. |
| Keywords: | Social Capital, Economic Development |
| JEL: | Z10 O10 D10 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_591_06&r=hrm |
| By: | Simeon Djankov (The World Bank); Yingyi Qian (UC Berkeley and CEPR); Gerard Roland (UC Berkeley and CEPR); Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (New Economic School/CEFIR and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We compare results from a pilot study on entrepreneurship in China and Russia. Compared to non-entrepreneurs, Russian and Chinese entrepreneurs have more entrepreneurs in their family and among childhood friends, value work more relative to leisure and have higher wealth ambitions. Russian entrepreneurs have a better educational background and their parents were more likely to have been members of the communist party but Chinese entrepreneurs are more risk-taking and greedy and have more entrepreneurs among their childhood friends. |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0049&r=hrm |
| By: | Horst Entorf; Martina Lauk |
| Abstract: | This article analyses the school performance of migrants dependent on peer groups in different international schooling environments. Using data from the international OECD PISA test, we consider social interaction within and between groups of natives and migrants. Results based on social multipliers (Glaeser et al. 2000, 2003) suggest that both native-tonative and migrant-to-migrant peer effects are higher in ability-differencing school systems than in comprehensive schools. Thus, non-comprehensive school systems seem to magnify the prevailing educational inequality between students with a low parental socioeconomic migration background and children from more privileged families. Students with a migration background and a disadvantageous parental status benefit from higher diversity within schools. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects, migration, education, social multipliers, school systems, parental socioeconomic background |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2006–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:cegedp:57&r=hrm |
| By: | Mark Doms; Ethan Lewis |
| Abstract: | The positive correlations found between computer use and human capital are often interpreted as evidence that the adoption of computers have raised the relative demand for skilled labor, the widely touted skill-biased technological change hypothesis. However, several models argue the skill- intensity of technology is endogenously determined by the relative supply of skilled labor. The authors use instruments for the supply of human capital coupled with a rich dataset on computer usage by businesses to show that the supply of human capital is an important determinant of the adoption of personal computers. Their results suggest that great caution must be exercised in placing economic interpretations on the correlations often found between technology and human capital. |
| Keywords: | Labor supply ; Computers |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:06-10&r=hrm |
| By: | Dupuy Arnaud (ROA wp) |
| Abstract: | An important factor of shifts in the skills composition of the workforceis the upgrading of the qualifications demanded in the variousjobs in the economy, the so-called skill-upgrading. This skill-upgradingis principally caused by the development of new technologies that demandmore or different skills to be efficiently operated or by organizationalchanges that lead to increase the skills demanded to perfomthe tasks of the various occupations. Drawing from the microeconomicfoundations of demand shifts, this paper presents an empiricalmethodology to estimate the speed of skill-upgrading in different periods. |
| Keywords: | education, training and the labour market; |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umarow:2006003&r=hrm |
| By: | Justin McCrary; Heather Royer |
| Abstract: | This paper uses age-at-school-entry policies to identify the effect of female education on fertility and infant health. We focus on sharp contrasts in schooling, fertility, and infant health between women born just before and after the school entry date. School entry policies affect female education and the quality of a woman’s mate and have generally small, but possibly heterogeneous, effects on fertility and infant health. We argue that school entry policies manipulate primarily the education of young women at risk of dropping out of school. |
| JEL: | C3 D1 I1 J2 |
| Date: | 2006–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12329&r=hrm |
| By: | Conceição Rego (Department of Economics, University of Évora); Maria Filomena Mendes (Department of Sociology, University of Évora); António Caleiro (Department of Economics, University of Évora) |
| Abstract: | O aumento nos níveis de produto e de rendimento é uma condição fundamental para a promoção do desenvolvimento económico, nos países e nas regiões. Ceteris paribus, níveis de rendimento mais elevados permitem que as famílias possam usufruir de níveis de rendimento disponível também mais elevados e, consequentemente, melhorar o seu nível de bem-estar. A teoria do capital humano mostra-nos, a nível territorial, a estreita relação entre o aumento da riqueza e os níveis de qualificação da população. Níveis elevados nestas variáveis – rendimento e habilitações escolares – traduzem-se, pelo menos nos países da Europa, em níveis também maiores de riqueza. Por outro lado, sabemos que os territórios não poderão promover processos sustentados de desenvolvimento económico e social, particularmente em termos inter-geracionais, se o número de filhos que cada família tem for insuficiente para garantir a substituição de gerações. Portugal é um dos países europeus com mais baixos níveis de rendimento (apenas 68.7% do PIB per capita em 2003), baixos níveis de qualificação no mercado de trabalho (cerca de 40% da população activa, em 2002, não tinha qualquer nível de instrução ou tinha apenas o 1º ciclo do ensino básico) e, simultaneamente com reduzidos níveis de fecundidade (em média, 1.4 filhos por mulher, em 2004). Efectivamente, este cenário coloca sérios desafios a Portugal, no que respeita à melhoria do comportamento destas variáveis. Assim, com esta comunicação propomo-nos, a partir de dados estatísticos para os concelhos de Portugal continental, analisar a existência de inter-relações entre as diferenças nos níveis de educação – particularmente das mulheres – e o número médio de filhos |
| Keywords: | Desenvolvimento económico, Desigualdades de rendimento, Diferenças nos níveis de educação, Fecundidade, Portugal |
| JEL: | A13 I21 J13 J31 O10 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:evo:wpecon:10_2006&r=hrm |