|
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Krebs, Tom; Krishna, Pravin; Maloney, William |
| Abstract: | Using data from Mexico, the authors study empirically the link between trade policy and individual income risk and the extent to which this varies across workers of different human capital (education) levels. They use longitudinal income data on workers to estimate time-varying individual income risk parameters in different manufacturing sectors in Mexico between 1987 and 1998, a period in which t he Mexican economy experienced substantial changes in trade policy. In a second step, they use the variations in trade policy across different sectors and over time to estimate the link between trade policy and income risk for workers of varying education levels. The authors ' findings are as follows. The level of openness of an economy is not found to be related to income risk for workers of any type. Furthermore, changes in trade policy (that is, trade policy reforms) are not found to have any effect on the risk to income faced by workers with either low or high levels of human capital. But workers with intermediate levels of human capital are found to experience a statistically and economically significant increase in income risk immediately following liberalization of trade. The findings thus point to an interesting non-monotonicity in the interaction between human capital, income risk and trade policy changes. |
| Keywords: | Economic Theory & Research,Inequality,Free Trade,Income,Political Economy |
| Date: | 2007–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4276&r=hrm |
| By: | Cervellati, Matteo; Sunde, Uwe |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a unified theory of the economic and demographic transition. Individuals make optimal decisions about fertility, education of their children and the type and intensity of the investments in their own education. These decisions are affected by different dimensions of mortality and technological progress which change endogenously during the process of development. The model generates an endogenous transition from a regime characterized by limited human capital formation, little longevity, high child mortality, large fertility and a sluggish income and productivity growth to a modern growth regime in which lower net fertility is associated with the acquisition of human capital and improved living standards. Unlike previous models, the framework emphasizes the education composition of the population in terms of the equilibrium share of educated individuals, and differential fertility related to education. The framework explores the roles of different dimensions of mortality, wages and schooling in triggering the transition. The dynamics of the model are consistent with empirical observations and stylized facts that have been difficult to reconcile so far. For illustration we simulate the model and discuss the novel predictions using historical and cross-country data. |
| Keywords: | child mortality; demographic transition; endogenous life expectancy; heterogeneous human capital; Long-term development |
| JEL: | E10 J10 O10 O40 O41 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6384&r=hrm |
| By: | Clercq, D. de; Hessels, S.J.A.; Stel, A.J. van (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University) |
| Abstract: | We draw on knowledge spillover literature to suggest that a country?s level of foreign direct investment (FDI) and international trade may influence the export orientation of its entrepreneurs, which in turn may relate to the country?s total level of entrepreneurial activity. Macro-level data from 34 countries during 2002?2005 indicate that a country?s outward FDI, export, and import positively affect entrepreneurs? export orientation, but these effects differ in how fast they manifest themselves. Furthermore, the extent to which a country?s entrepreneurs engage in export-oriented activities affects the subsequent emergence of new businesses. These findings have important implications for research and practice. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge spillovers;Export orientation;Country-level entrepreneurship; |
| Date: | 2007–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:300011416&r=hrm |
| By: | Sullivan, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper examines career choices using a dynamic structural model that nests a job search model within a human capital model of occupational and educational choices. Individuals in the model decide when to attend school and when to move between firms and occupations over the course of their career. Workers search for suitable wage and non-pecuniary match values at firms across occupations given their heterogeneous skill endowments and preferences for employment in each occupation. Over the course of their careers workers endogenously accumulate firm and occupation specific human capital that affects wages differently across occupations. The parameters of the model are estimated with simulated maximum likelihood using data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The structural parameter estimates reveal that both self-selection in occupational choices and mobility between firms account for a much larger share of total earnings and utility than the combined effects of firm and occupation specific human capital. Eliminating the gains from matching between workers and occupations would reduce total wages by 31%, eliminating the gains from job search would reduce wages by 19%, and eliminating the effects of firm and occupation specific human capital on wages would reduce wages by only 2.8%. |
| Keywords: | occupational choice; job search; human capital; dynamic programming models |
| JEL: | J24 J62 I21 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3896&r=hrm |
| By: | Christine Jolls |
| Abstract: | Legal rules governing the employer-employee relationship are many and varied. Economic analysis has illuminated both the efficiency and the effects on employee welfare of such rules, as described in this paper. Topics addressed include workplace safety mandates, compensation systems for workplace injuries, privacy protection in the workplace, employee fringe benefits mandates, targeted mandates such as medical and family leave, wrongful discharge laws, unemployment insurance systems, minimum wage rules, and rules requiring that employees receive overtime pay. Both economic theory and empirical evidence are considered. |
| JEL: | J08 J18 J38 K00 K31 K32 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13230&r=hrm |
| By: | Mike Misek |
| Date: | 2007–06–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwneu:neurusp108&r=hrm |
| By: | Valadkhani, Abbas (University of Wollongong); Ville, Simon (University of Wollongong) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops and estimates a cross-sectional model for forecasting research output across the Australian university system. It builds upon an existing literature that focuses either on institutional comparisons or studies of specific subjects, by providing discipline-specific results across all of the ten major disciplinary areas as defined by AustraliaâÃÂÃÂs Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). The model draws upon four discipline-specific explanatory variables; staff size, research expenditure, PhD completions, and student-staff ratios to predict output of refereed articles. When compared with actual averaged output for 2000-2004, the results are highly statistically significant. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp06-26&r=hrm |
| By: | Fersterer, Josef; Pischke, JÃÂörn-Steffen; Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the payoffs to apprenticeship training in the German speaking countries for the participants. OLS estimates suggest that the returns are similar to those of other types of schooling. However, there is a lot of heterogeneity in the types of apprenticeships offered, and institutional descriptions suggest that there might be an important element of selection in who obtains an apprenticeship, and what type. In order to overcome the resulting ability bias we estimate returns to apprenticeship training for apprentices in failed firms in Austria. When a firm fails, current apprentices cannot complete their training in this firm. Because apprentices will be at different stages in their apprenticeship at that time, the failure of a firm will manipulate the length of the apprenticeship period completed for some apprentices. The time to the firm failure therefore serves as an instrument for the length of the apprenticeship completed both at the original firm and at other firms. We find instrumental variables returns which are similar or larger than the OLS returns in our sample, indicating relatively little selection. |
| Keywords: | ability bias; firm-based training; Human capital; returns to schooling |
| JEL: | J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6387&r=hrm |
| By: | Conny Wunsch |
| Abstract: | Labour market policies for the unemployed combine passive income support with active measures that aim at improving jobseekers' employment prospects. This paper extends the theoretical framework developed by Pavoni and Violante (2005a) for the optimal choice between different active and passive policies for the unemployed to a setting which allows for the use of a job search assistance programme that affects the exit rate to employment by raising search effectiveness but not productivity in the job. These programmes are one of the most widely used activation measures in OECD countries and should, therefore, be taken into account when considering the optimal design of labour market policies. The enriched model allows to answer a wide range of interesting policy questions. It is used to assess the optimality of the West German policy in the period 2000-2002 as well as the benefits from introducing tight monitoring. It is shown that sizeable budget savings could have been realised by switching to the optimal scheme, but that the net gains from monitoring are only small. In addition, some interesting results on the optimal use of job search assistance and training are derived. It is shown that existing policies already share some but not all features of the optimal scheme. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment insurance, active labour market policies, recursive contracts, job search, human capital |
| JEL: | D82 J24 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:dp2007:2007-26&r=hrm |
| By: | Shihe Fu (Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (China)); Stephen L. Ross (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | The correlation between wage premia and concentrations of firm activity may arise due to agglomeration economies or workers sorting by unobserved productivity. A worker's residential location is used as a proxy for their unobservable productivity attributes in order to test whether estimated work location wage premia are robust to the inclusion of these controls. Further, in a locational equilibrium, identical workers must receive equivalent compensation so that after controlling for residential location (housing prices) and commutes workers must be paid the same wages and only wage premia arising from unobserved productivity differences should remain unexplained. The models in this paper are estimated using a sample of male workers residing in 33 large metropolitan areas drawn from the 5% Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 2000 U.S. Decennial Census. We find that wages are higher when an individual works in a location that has more workers or a greater density of workers. These agglomeration effects are robust to the inclusion of residential location controls and disappear with the inclusion of commute time suggesting that the effects are not caused by unobserved differences in worker productivity. Extended model specifications suggest that wages increase with the education level of nearby workers and the concentration of workers in an individual's own industry or occupation. |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration, Wages, Sorting, Locational Equilibrium, Human Capital |
| JEL: | R13 R30 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2007-26&r=hrm |
| By: | Gabriele, Alberto; Schettino, Francesco |
| Abstract: | In this paper we propose and test an interpretative framework on the social and economic determinants of child malnutrition and child mortality, two key human development indicators. The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 illustrates the main economic and social factors causing child malnutrition and mortality. Section 2 identifies the main clusters of food insecure and vulnerable households and briefly describes their livelihood profiles. Section 3 exposes our cross-country estimation methodology. Section 4 reports and discusses the results. Section 5 concludes. |
| Keywords: | Malnutrition; Mortality; Cross-Country Analysis; Millenium Development Goals; Food Insecurity |
| JEL: | I38 I32 O21 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3132&r=hrm |
| By: | McKenzie, David; Sasin, Marcin J. |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews common challenges faced by researchers interested in measuring the impact of migration and remittances on income, poverty, inequality, and human capital (or, in general, " welfare " ) as well as difficulties confronting development practitioners in converting this research into policy advice. On the analytical side, the paper discusses the proper formulation of a research question, the choice of the analytical tools, as well as the interpretation of the results in the presence of pervasive endogeneity in all decisions surrounding migration. Particular attention is given to the use of instrumental variables in migration research. On the policy side, the paper argues that the private nature of migration and remittances implies a need to carefully spell out the rationale for interventions. It also notices the lack of good migration data and proper evaluations of migration-related government policies. The paper focuses mainly on microeconomic evidence about international migration, but much of the discussion extends to other settings as well. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Health Monitoring & Evaluation,Banks & Banking Reform,Anthropology,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement |
| Date: | 2007–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4272&r=hrm |
| By: | John H. Munro |
| Abstract: | Richard Tawney (1880-1962), who taught at the London School of Economics from 1917 to 1949, was unquestionably one of the very most important economic historians that England has ever produced: so much so, indeed, that the era of his major research and publications, 1540 - 1640, has justly come to be known as âÃÂÃÂTawneyâÃÂÃÂs CenturyâÃÂÃÂ. Those publications, and the debates that they provoked, concern the origins or roots of modern capitalism and (implicitly) capitalist entrepreneurship that were supposed to have been established in this century. Though the roots of those economic developments, in particular those leading to more modern forms of industrial capitalism, may indeed lie in that century, nevertheless the main thesis of this study is that most of their positive fruits are instead to be found in the ensuing century of 1640 - 1740, the century preceding the advent of the modern Industrial Revolution. TawneyâÃÂÃÂs seminal scholarship, towards these ends, was concerned with two major issues. The first considered in this study is his 1926 monograph: Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, which in part was designed to promote, in the English-speaking world, Max WeberâÃÂÃÂs famous thesis (1905) on âÃÂÃÂThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of CapitalismâÃÂÃÂ. Both works focused on how three elements of one Protestant sect in particular, the Calvinists (from 1536), came to influence so deeply that Protestant Ethic and new ethos of modern capitalism: Predestination, the Calling, and âÃÂÃÂWorldly AsceticismâÃÂÃÂ. The significance of this form of Protestantism in England is that Calvinists and other Non-Conformists or Dissenters, those who refused to conform to the Church of England after the 1660 royalist Restoration, constituted about one half of the known scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs from the later 17th century and through the Industrial Revolution era (1760-1820), though constituting only 5 percent of the population. The debate concerns the roles of their restricted (legislated) minority status and of schools and superior educational systems that they had to establish, but also the applicability of the Weber-Tawney thesis, in explaining their superior economic performance. TawneyâÃÂÃÂs second major issue was that of âÃÂÃÂagrarian capitalismâÃÂÃÂ, along with the supposed âÃÂÃÂrise of the gentryâÃÂÃÂ: involving the transfer of vast amounts of land from the old aristocracy, the crown and church together, and finally the free-holding yeomanry into the hands of a non-aristocratic upper class who were far more predisposed and able to engage in profit-maximizing agriculture, especially through enclosures and the technology of the New Husbandry. But if Tawney dates this shift from Henry VIIIâÃÂÃÂs Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1536, this study contends that the real shift, but certainly a major shift, to âÃÂÃÂagrarian capitalismâÃÂÃÂ, involving enclosures and the New Husbandry, again came only after the 1660s. To provide a contrast to TawneyâÃÂÃÂs work, this study examines two alternative theses on the origins of modern industrial capitalism within TawneyâÃÂÃÂs century (1540-1640): (1) Earl HamiltonâÃÂÃÂs thesis of âÃÂÃÂProfit InflationâÃÂÃÂ, one fully endorsed by Keynes; and (2) John NefâÃÂÃÂs âÃÂÃÂEarly Industrial Revolution in Tudor-Stuart EnglandâÃÂÃÂ. The Hamilton thesis is rejected in this study, with the contention that its true importance was to inspire NefâÃÂÃÂs counter-thesis: on the decisive shift from wood and charcoal fuels to coal fuels, which in turn required very major technological changes (in furnace designs), which in turn led to major increases in industrial scale, and (for Nef) to true âÃÂÃÂindustrial capitalismâÃÂÃÂ. This study, noting the importance of WrigleyâÃÂÃÂs similar thesis on a shift from an organic (wood-based) to an inorganic (coal-based) industrial economy, supports the essence of the Nef thesis âÃÂàbut only for the period after 1640 (with new data). Finally, this study considers two other related changes so necessary for the development of early-modern capitalism, in this era: the development of the Full Rigged or Atlantic Ship (but from the 1450s) and the overseas joint-stock trading companies. Again, their major impact came after 1660, with the âÃÂÃÂNew ColonialismâÃÂà(Hobsbawm) or âÃÂÃÂCommercial RevolutionâÃÂà(Davis). The study also considers the history of the English joint stock companies, from the first joint-stock company, in overseas trade (the Muscovy Company of 1553) to the Bubble Act of 1720, which restricted their formation until 1825. Also included is their role in the so-called âÃÂÃÂFinancial RevolutionâÃÂàfrom 1694 to 1757 (âÃÂÃÂPelhamsâÃÂÃÂs ConversionâÃÂàof the national debt). |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; capitalism; Calvinism; Weber-Tawney thesis; Dissenters; the Gentry; New Husbandry; joint-stock companies; Financial Revolution |
| JEL: | B11 B52 D23 D74 I20 L20 N43 N54 N64 N83 |
| Date: | 2007–07–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-295&r=hrm |