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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
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Issue of 2006‒10‒14
fifteen papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Universita degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza |
| By: | Jahyeong Koo; W. Michael Cox |
| Abstract: | Suicide rates in Japan have increased dramatically in recent years, making Japan's male rate the highest among developed economies. This study revises the standard economic model of suicide to accommodate Japan's experience, focusing on the change in human capital for the unemployed. We then use the new model and de-trended data to emperically investigate the relationship between the suicide cycle and the unemployment cycle. Unlike previous aggregate time series studies, we find that the relationship between the suicide rate and the unemployment rate is significantly and robustly positive for both males and females even after controlling for several social variables. |
| Keywords: | Human capital ; Unemployment |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:0603&r=hrm |
| By: | Juanna Schrøter Joensen; Helena Skyt Nielsen (School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | Outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries has increased the focus on the accumulation of skills - such as Math skills - in high-wage countries. In this paper, we exploit a high school pilot scheme to identify the causal effect of advanced high school Math on labor market outcomes. The pilot scheme reduced the costs of choosing advanced Math because it allowed for at more flexible combination of Math with other courses. We find clear evidence of a causal relationship between Math and earnings for the students who are induced to choose Math after being exposed to the pilot scheme. The effect partly stems from the fact that these students end up with higher education. |
| Keywords: | Math, High School Curriculum, Instrumental Variable, Local Average Treatment Effect. |
| JEL: | I20 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2006-11&r=hrm |
| By: | Budria, Santiago; Telhado-Pereira, Pedro |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the connection between education and wage inequality in nine European countries. We exploit the quantile regression technique to calculate returns to lower secondary, upper secondary and tertiary education at different points of the wage distribution. We find that in most countries returns to tertiary education are highly increasing when moving from the lower to the upper quantiles. This finding suggests that an educational expansion towards tertiary education is expected to increase overall within-groups inequality in Europe. In turn, returns to secondary education are quite homogeneous across quantiles, suggesting that an educational expansion towards secondary education is expected to have only a limited impact on within-groups dispersion. Using data from the last decades, we describe changes in the conditional wage distribution of the surveyed countries. A common feature in Europe is that over the last years wage dispersion increased within the high educated. |
| Keywords: | Returns to education; Quantile regression; Wage inequality |
| JEL: | C29 D31 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:91&r=hrm |
| By: | Akhmed Akhmedov (CEFIR) |
| Abstract: | Classical theory considers political business cycle as a result of either opportunistic behavior of government (opportunistic cycle) or aiming policy on certain constituency (partisan cycle). In this paper, we propose an alternative explanation of the phenomenon of political business cycle — experience of government. We propose an illustration that shows that elections infer cycles without any opportunism or ideology of incumbents. We also build a model with endogenous ego-rent. The model explains a channel to increase incentives, when none has commitment — governors need to develop skills to increase their value for public and increase probability to get re-elected. Using fiscal monthly data of Russian regions from 1996 to 2004, we got evidence both of positive effect of experience on performance and opportunistic component of the cycle. We also got evidence of diminishing return on experience. |
| Keywords: | Elections, opportunistic business cycle, experience, sunk cost, Russian regions. |
| JEL: | D72 E32 H72 P16 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0087&r=hrm |
| By: | George W. Hammond (Bureau of Business and Economic Research, West Virginia University); Eric Thompson (Department of Economics and Bureau of Business Research, University of Nebraska) |
| Abstract: | This research analyzes determinants of growth across U.S. labor market regions, using a production function approach based on four inputs: labor, manufacturing investment, human capital investment, and public capital investment. We find significant differences in the relative influence of growth determinants between metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions during the 1969-1999 period. We find little role for public capital investment in either metropolitan or non-metropolitan regions, but that manufacturing investment tended to spur growth in non-metropolitan regions, in contrast to results for metropolitan regions. We find that human capital matters for both metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions, but that increased human capital investment in metropolitan regions may have a larger impact on growth than in non-metropolitan regions. Further, the presence of more colleges and universities, more household amenities, and lower tax rates were all found to encourage human capital accumulation in U.S. labor market areas. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wvu:wpaper:06-12&r=hrm |
| By: | Cristobal, Adolfo |
| Abstract: | This note derives positive and normative implications about the effects of immigration on welfare and the skill composition of the labor force in receiving economies. The main channel through which immigration affects labor-market outcomes is the availability of new loanable funds for investment, which results in endogenous skill-upgrading. Given their high training costs and their lifelong working period, immigrants self-select as net lenders, which facilitates the upgrading of both new generations of natives and migrants. Under sufficient altruism towards future generations, this induces a Pareto-improvement among the current generations of natives. |
| JEL: | J61 J31 |
| Date: | 2006–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:221&r=hrm |
| By: | Jeffrey G. Williamson |
| Abstract: | In the first global century before 1914, trade and especially migration had profound effects on both low-wage, labor abundant Europe and the high-wage, labor scarce New World. Those global forces contributed to a reduction in unskilled labor scarcity in the New World and to a rise in unskilled labor scarcity in Europe. Thus, it contributed to rising inequality in overseas countries, like the United States, and falling inequality in most of Europe. Falling unskilled labor scarcity and rising skill scarcity contributed to the high school revolution in the US. Rising unskilled scarcity also contributed to the primary schooling and literacy revolution in Europe. Under what conditions would we expect the same responses to globalization in today’s world? This paper argues that modern debates about inequality and schooling responses to globalization should pay more attention to history. |
| JEL: | D3 F1 I2 J6 N3 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12553&r=hrm |
| By: | Larry Isaac; Rick Mattoon; Laura Melle |
| Abstract: | Richard K. Lester feels that colleges and universities, because they are immobile, can replace local institutions whose leadership has been eroded by globalization. However, university attempts to improve the regional economy must be well-planned. North Dakota clearly illustrates benefits of a strategic approach to university and college interaction with the economy. This paper examines the degree to which their Higher Education Roundtable fits into the specific model of engagement proposed by Lester. Much of the specificity of the North Dakota plan came in the implementation, which has been guided by specific accountability measures. Because such measures can not only reflect priorities but also set them, this paper evaluates the new initiatives in North Dakota with an independent set of metrics that assess university efforts to foster innovation. While the two sets of metrics are largely compatible, North Dakota University System does not evaluate qualitative goals throughout the university system. This paper argues that qualitative outputs from higher education are often under reported in assessments of economic and social benefits attributed to universities and colleges. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-06-08&r=hrm |
| By: | Al-Samarrai, Samer; Bennell, Paul |
| Abstract: | Anecdotal evidence and generalisations abound concerning the employment outcomes of secondary school and university leavers, but there is very little solid, accurate information on what these groups in African countries do after they have completed their education. Using tracer surveys, this paper presents comprehensive time-series information on the activity profiles of representative samples of secondary school leavers and university graduates in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The paper shows that much of the anecdotal evidence surrounding the labour market outcomes of these groups is spurious. While employment outcomes are generally much better than expected, the tracer surveys highlight the enormous challenges of educating and subsequently utilising secondary school leavers and university graduates in an efficient and effective manner in low-income African countries. In particular, given the paucity of new employment opportunities in the formal sector, much more needs to be done in order to ensure that both these groups are better prepared for productive self-employment, especially in high growth and higher skill activities. |
| Keywords: | education; labour markets; further education and training; tracer surveys |
| JEL: | I2 J62 J0 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:128&r=hrm |
| By: | James Giesecke; G.A.Meagher |
| Abstract: | The paper uses MONASH, a dynamic computable general equilibrium model, to investigate the impact on the Australian economy of a 50 per cent increase in the skilled migrant intake over the period 2005-2025. The primary purpose of the modelling it to identify how the labour market might absorb an increase in the number of skilled visa entrants. To that end, the modelling recognises labour supply by 67 types of skill (defined as an education field classified by an education level) and 81 occupations. We find that, even with the increase in immigration heavily weighted towards skilled visa entrants, the main effect of the policy is to increase the scale of the economy. The main compositional effects are to shift economic activity towards the construction sector and sectors supplying material inputs to construction activity, raise the relative wages of workers that supply labour used intensively in construction and related sectors, reduce the relative wages of skilled labour, and increase returns to capital relative to labour. |
| Keywords: | CGE modelling, skilled immigration |
| JEL: | C68 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cop:wpaper:g-157&r=hrm |
| By: | Woodcock, Simon |
| Abstract: | We present an empirical model of earnings that controls for observable and unobservable characteristics of workers (person effects), unmeasured characteristics of their employers (firm effects), and unmeasured characteristics of worker-firm matches (match effects). We interpret these as the returns to general human capital, firm-specific human capital, and match-specific human capital, respectively. We stress the importance of match effects because the returns to match-specific human capital will be incorrectly attributed to general and/or firm-specific human capital when match effects are omitted, and because general and specific human capital have very different implications for the economic cost of job destruction. We find that slightly more than half of observed variation in log earnings is attributable to general human capital, 22 percent is attributable to firm-specific human capital, and 16 percent to match-specific human capital. Specifications that omit match effects over-estimate the returns to experience by as much as 50 percent, over-estimate the returns to a college education by as much as 8 percent, attribute too much variation to person effects, and too little to firm effects. Our results suggest that considerable earnings variation previously attributed to general human capital -- both observed and unobserved -- is in fact attributable to workers sorting into higher-paying firms and better worker-firm matches. |
| Keywords: | human capital; fixed effects; mixed effects; person and firm effects; linked employer-employee data |
| JEL: | C23 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:154&r=hrm |
| By: | Robert Coulon (Université de Bourgogne) |
| Abstract: | (VF)Dans quelle mesure les entreprises françaises déclinent-elles la notion de Responsabilité Sociale dans leurs pratiques de gestion des Ressources Humaines (GRH) ? Cherchent-elles à développer des pratiques RH qui dépassent l’application des règles de droit ? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous présentons les résultats d’une enquête auprès de 106 professionnels RH appartenant dans leur majorité à des entreprises industrielles de taille importante. Leurs témoignages, recueillis par questionnaires, portent sur un ensemble limité de pratiques RH socialement responsables.Selon nos résultats, les pratiques de GRH intègrent assez peu la notion de Responsabilité Sociale des Entreprises (RSE) ; elles répondent essentiellement à des règles de droit.(VA) As far as human resource management practices (HRM) are concerned, how do French companies respond to corporate social responsibility (CSR)? Are they eager to develop practices beyond the existing legal rules? To answer these questions, we present the results of an inquiry involving 106 HR managers who mainly belong to large manufacturing companies. Their statements, collected by questionnaire, are focused on a few “responsible” HRM practices.According to our results, the HR management practices are still very slightly affected by CSR, they mainly respond to legal rules. |
| Keywords: | Responsabilité Sociales des Entreprises (RSE);Gestion des Ressources Humaines (GRH);Human Resource Management (HRM), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). |
| JEL: | M12 M14 M51 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dij:wpfarg:1060902&r=hrm |
| By: | Christine Marsal (Université de Bourgogne) |
| Abstract: | (VF)S’il est courant d’opposer capital financier et capital humain les organisations mettent en place des mécanismes de coordination afin de faire converger les intérêts des deux catégories de partenaires que sont les salariés et les actionnaires. La théorie de l’architecture organisationnelle permet de fournir un cadre d’analyse pertinent pour rendre compte de ces mécanismes. Dans ce cadre nous pouvons constater la pluralité des mécanismes d’incitation. Parmi eux, les incitations financières et le pouvoir de délégation accordé au niveau local figurent en bonne place. Ce qui garantit l’efficacité de ces mécanismes est la complémentarité et la cohérence des différentes composantes de l’architecture organisationnelle. Nous illustrons notre propos par une étude conduite dans le secteur bancaire français.(VA)If financial and human capital are commonly opposed, organization internal coordination used to align both employee and stockholder interest. Organizational architecure theory provides a conceptual framework to study thoses mecanisms. In this framework, we can notice incitative plurality mecanisms. We particularly study financial compensation and decision right allocation. Value creation comes from complemenarity between thoses mecanisms, an illustration is given in french retail banking sector. |
| Keywords: | incitations financières;marge de manœuvre;pouvoir de délégation;capital humain;capital financier;banques de réseau;architecture organisationnelle. |
| JEL: | D20 M10 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dij:wpfarg:1060501&r=hrm |
| By: | Budria, Santiago |
| Abstract: | International research has shown that schooling enhances within-groups wage dispersion. This assessment is typically based on private sector data and, up to date, the inequality implications of schooling have not been documented for the public sector. This paper uses recent data from eight European countries to explicitly take into account differences between the private and public sectors. Using quantile regression, the paper describes the effects of schooling on the location and shape of the conditional wage distribution in each sector. While the average impact of schooling on wages is similar across sectors, the impact of schooling on within-groups dispersion is found to be substantially larger in the private sector than in the public sector. This finding warns that the effects of the European educational expansion on overall within-groups dispersion may be lower than previously thought. |
| Keywords: | Returns to schooling; Quantile regression; Within-groups wage inequality |
| JEL: | I21 D31 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:90&r=hrm |
| By: | Fatma El-Hamidi; Ragui Assaad; Ahmed Akhter |
| Date: | 2000–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pit:wpaper:269&r=hrm |