|
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Nadir Altinok (IREDU - Institut de recherche sur l'éducation : Sociologie et Economie de l'Education - [CNRS : UMR5225] - [Université de Bourgogne]) |
| Abstract: | The estimation of the relationship between education and economic growth is marked by contradictions. These contradictions underline the lack of precision characterizing indicators of human capital. This paper constructs new indicators based on a pool of international surveys concerning pupil assessment. Thus, our new database, which includes 105 countries, makes it possible to confirm or not the positive relationship between education and growth. Taking into account the endogeneity of education, we measure a positive effect of qualitative indicators of human capital and the growth of countries between 1960 and 2000. The contribution of education to growth therefore appears significant, both from a quantitative and a qualitative point of view. |
| Keywords: | Education quality ; Human capital ; Growth ; Development |
| Date: | 2007–09–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00132531_v2&r=hrm |
| By: | C. Mirjam van Praag (University of Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute, Max Planck Institute of Economics Jena and IZA); Peter H. Versloot (University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines to what extent recent empirical evidence can collectively and systematically substantiate the claim that entrepreneurship has important economic value. Hence, a systematic review is provided that answers the question: What is the contribution of entrepreneurs to the economy in comparison to non-entrepreneurs? We study the relative contribution of entrepreneurs to the economy based on four measures that have most widely been studied empirically. Hence, we answer the question: What is the contribution of entrepreneurs to (i) employment generation and dynamics, (ii) innovation, and (iii) productivity and growth, relative to the contributions of the entrepreneurs’ counterparts, i.e. the ‘control group’? A fourth type of contribution studied is the role of entrepreneurship in increasing individuals’ utility levels. Based on 57 recent studies of high quality that contain 87 relevant separate analyses, we conclude that entrepreneurs have a very important - but specific - function in the economy. They engender relatively much employment creation, productivity growth and produce and commercialize high quality innovations. They are more satisfied than employees. More importantly, recent studies show that entrepreneurial firms produce important spillovers that affect regional employment growth rates of all companies in the region in the long run. However, the counterparts cannot be missed either as they account for a relatively high value of GDP, a less volatile and more secure labor market, higher paid jobs and a greater number of innovations and they have a more active role in the adoption of innovations. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, self-employment, productivity, economic development, growth, employment, innovation, patents, R&D, utility, remuneration, income |
| JEL: | D24 D31 E23 E24 J21 J28 J31 L26 M13 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3014&r=hrm |
| By: | Panu Poutvaara (University of Helsinki and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes educational choices and political support for subsidies to higher education in the presence of a time-consistency problem in income redistribution. There may be political support for so generous subsidization that it motivates the median voter to obtain higher education. As a result of increasing own income, the median voter prefers in the future lower taxes than without higher education. Therefore, the expansion of participation in higher education during the second half of the 20th century may have partly been driven by the aim to limit the political support for overly generous income redistribution. |
| Keywords: | education, time-consistency problem, voting, subsidies to education |
| JEL: | H52 I22 D72 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3023&r=hrm |
| By: | Ashraf, Quamrul; Galor, Oded |
| Abstract: | This research argues that variations in the interplay between cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion have played a significant role in giving rise to differential patterns of economic development across the globe. Societies that were geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion, benefited from enhanced assimilation, lower cultural diversity and, thus, more intense accumulation of society-specific human capital, enabling them to flourish in the technological paradigm that characterized the agricultural stage of development. The lack of cultural diffusion and its manifestation in cultural rigidity, however, diminished the ability of these societies to adapt to a new technological paradigm, which delayed their industrialization and, thereby, their take-off to a state of sustained economic growth. The theory contributes to the understanding of the advent of divergence and overtaking in the process of long-run development, attributing the dominance of some societies within a given technological regime to a superior operation of cultural assimilation, while the success of others in the switch between technological regimes to a higher frequency of cultural diffusion and the beneficial effect of diversity on the adaptability of society to a changing technological environment. Thus, in contrast to the cultural and institutional hypotheses, which posit a hierarchy of cultural and institutional attributes in terms of their conduciveness to innovation and their ability in fostering industrialization, the proposed theory suggests that the desirable degree of the relative prevalence of cultural assimilation versus cultural diffusion varies according to the stage of development. Enhanced cultural assimilation is optimal within a given stage of development, but is detrimental for the transition between technological regimes. Therefore, while cultural traits themselves do not necessarily have a differential effect on the process of development, it is the variation in the relative strengths of the forces of cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion, which together determine the heterogeneity of these traits, that is instrumental for comparative economic development. |
| Keywords: | cultural assimilation; cultural diffusion; cultural diversity; geography |
| JEL: | O11 O13 O14 O31 O33 O41 O43 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6444&r=hrm |
| By: | Korpi, Tomas (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University); Tåhlin, Michael (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of educational mismatch on wages and wage growth in Sweden. The empirical analyses, based on cross-sectional and panel data from the Level of living surveys 1974-2000, are guided by two main hypotheses: (a) that educational mismatch reflects human capital compensation rather than real mismatch, and (b) that educational mismatch is real but dissolves with time spent in the labour market, so that its impact on wages tends toward zero over a typical worker’s career. Our findings do not support these hypotheses. First, significant differences in contemporaneous economic returns to education across match categories remain even after variations in ability are taken into account. Second, we find no evidence that the rate of wage growth is higher among overeducated workers than others. Our conclusion is that the overeducated are penalized early on by an inferior rate of return to schooling from which they do not recover. |
| Keywords: | Educational mismatch; overeducation; wages |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2007–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2007_010&r=hrm |
| By: | Cátia Batista (University of Oxford and IZA); Aitor Lacuesta (Bank of Spain); Pedro C. Vicente (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Does emigration really drain human capital accumulation in origin countries? This paper explores a unique household survey purposely designed and conducted to answer this specific question for the case of Cape Verde - the African country with the largest fraction of tertiary educated population living abroad, despite also having a fast-growing stock of human capital. Unlike previous literature, our tailored survey allows us to adjust existing inflated "brain drain" numbers for educational upgrading of emigrants after migration. We do so by combining our survey data on current, return and non-migrants with information from censuses of the destination countries. Our micro data also enables us to propose a novel, explicit test of "brain gain" arguments according to which the possibility of own future emigration positively impacts educational attainment in the origin country. Crucially, the innovative empirical strategy we propose hinges on the ideal characteristics of our survey, namely on full histories of migrants and on a new set of exclusion restrictions to control for unobserved heterogeneity of emigrants. Our results point to a very substantial impact of the "brain gain" channel on the educational attainment of those left behind. Alternative channels (namely remittances, family disruption, and general equilibrium effects at the local level) are also considered, but these do not seem to play an important role. Overall, we find that there may be substantial human capital gains from allowing free migration and encouraging return migration. |
| Keywords: | brain drain, brain gain, brain circulation, international migration, human capital, effects of emigration in origin countries, household survey, Cape Verde, sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | F22 J24 O15 O55 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3035&r=hrm |
| By: | Paulo Roberto Corbucci |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to discuss the relations between higher education and development in the context of the Brazilian society. Thus, it begins with the analysis of scientific and technological production in Brazil as well as the preparation of professionals required by the public and private productive sectors during the last two decades. Furthermore, it presents indicators concerning supply and demand for higher education in Brazil. It also covers the evaluation of the performance of higher educational system, financial aid for students and federal expenditure for this level of education. From the analysis related to these subjects, it was possible to outline some challenges for the higher education area to increase its contribution to the development of the Brazilian nation. |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipe:ipetds:1287&r=hrm |
| By: | Ron A. Boschma (Utrecht University, Department of Economic Geography, Utrecht, Netherlands); Michael Fritsch (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, German Institute of Economic Research, Berlin, and Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the regional distribution and the effect of people in creative occupations based on data for more than 450 regions in eight European countries. The geographic distribution of the creative class is highly uneven. The creative class is not attracted to highly urbanized regions per se, but rather a climate of tolerance and openness seem to be rather important factors. We find that the creative class has a positive and significant effect on employment growth and new business formation at the regional level. Human capital as measured by creative occupation outperforms indicators that are based on formal education. |
| Keywords: | Creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, regional development |
| JEL: | O31 O18 R12 |
| Date: | 2007–09–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-066&r=hrm |
| By: | Arnaud Chevalier (Royal Holloway University of London, University College Dublin, CEE, London School of Economics and IZA); Steve Gibbons (CEP, London School of Economics); Andy Thorpe (University of Portsmouth); Martin Snell (University of Portsmouth); Sherria Hoskins (University of Portsmouth) |
| Abstract: | Participation rates in higher education differ persistently between some groups in society. Using two British datasets we investigate whether this gap is rooted in students’ misperception of their own and other’s ability, thereby increasing the expected costs to studying. Among high school pupils, we find that pupils with a more positive view of their academic abilities are more likely to expect to continue to higher education even after controlling for observable measures of ability and students’ characteristics. University students are also poor at estimating their own test-performance and over-estimate their predicted test score. However, females, white and working class students have less inflated view of themselves. Self-perception has limited impact on the expected probability of success and expected returns amongst these university students. |
| Keywords: | test performance, self-assessment, higher education participation, academic self-perception |
| JEL: | I21 J16 Y80 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3031&r=hrm |
| By: | Black, Sandra; Devereux, Paul J.; Salvanes, Kjell G |
| Abstract: | How do families influence the ability of children? Cognitive skills have been shown to be a strong predictor of educational attainment and future labor market success; as a result, understanding the determinants of cognitive skills can lead to a better understanding of children’s long run outcomes. This paper uses a large dataset on the male population of Norway and focuses on one family characteristic: the effect of family size on IQ. Because of the endogeneity of family size, we instrument for family size using twin births and sex composition. IV estimates using sex composition as an instrument show no negative effect of family size; however, IV estimates using twins imply that family size has a negative effect on IQ. Our results suggest that effect of family size depends on the type of family size intervention. We conclude that there are no important negative effects of expected increases in family size on IQ but that unexpected shocks to family size resulting from twin births have negative effects on the IQ of existing children. |
| Keywords: | family size; intelligence; Quantity-Quality Model |
| JEL: | J12 J13 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6443&r=hrm |
| By: | Berliant, Marcus; Fujita, Masahisa |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a micro-model of knowledge creation and transfer for a couple. Our model incorporates two key aspects of the cooperative process of knowledge creation: (i) heterogeneity of people in their state of knowledge is essential for successful cooperation in the joint creation of new ideas, while (ii) the very process of cooperative knowledge creation affects the heterogeneity of people through the accumulation of knowledge in common. The model features myopic agents in a pure externality model of interaction. In the two person case, we show that the equilibrium process tends to result in the accumulation of too much knowledge in common compared to the most productive state. Equilibrium paths are found analytically, and they are a discontinuous function of initial heterogeneity. |
| Keywords: | knowledge creation; knowledge transfer; knowledge externalities; endogenous agent heterogeneity |
| JEL: | D83 O31 R11 |
| Date: | 2007–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:4973&r=hrm |
| By: | Andreas Breinbauer (wiiw) |
| Abstract: | The article provides a general introductory overview of the (spatial) mobility of highly skilled/qualified persons and discusses the different terms of the mobility of the Highly Skilled, especially those of scientists. It outlines theoretical and empirical aspects of these movements and delineates the drain of European talent to the U.S., especially the outflow of scientists and researchers who contribute considerably to the U.S. innovation system. Further, it takes a closer look at outward mobility in the former socialist countries in Europe, especially in South Eastern Europe, in the period before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Finally, the article outlines general policy options in dealing with the mobility of the Highly Qualified. |
| Keywords: | Brain Drain, Eu, USA, High Skill, High Skilled. Mobility, Migration |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wsr:wpaper:y:2007:i:004&r=hrm |