nep-hrm New Economics Papers
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management
Issue of 2007‒11‒17
seventeen papers chosen by
Fabio Sabatini
University of Rome, La Sapienza
  1. Do Economic Reforms and Human Capital Help Explain Growth in India and South Korea? A Comparative Study By Svitlana Maksymenko; M. Rabbani
  2. Adolescents' Educational Attainment and School Experiences in Contemporary Ireland By Merike Darmody; Emer Smyth; Selina McCoy
  3. Measuring the Determinants of Educational Spending in Africa By Olusegun A. Akanbi; Niek J. Schoeman
  4. Youth Exclusion in Iran: The State of Education, Employment and Family Formation By Djavad Salehi-Isfahani; Daniel Egel
  5. Is Management Interdisciplinary? The Evolution of Management as an Interdisciplinary Field of Research and Education in the Netherlands By Baalen, P.J. van; Karsten, L.
  6. Entrepreneurial Diversity and Economic Growth By Verheul, I.; Stel, A.J. van
  7. Factor Endowments and the Returns to Skill: New Evidence from the American Past By Joseph Kaboski; Trevon D. Logan
  8. Acculturation Identity and Educational Attainment By Nekby, Lena; Rödin, Magnus; Özcan, Gülay
  9. Estimating the Demand for Union-Led Learning in Scotland By Jeanette Findlay; Patricia Findlay; Chris Warhurst
  10. The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on the Educational Attainment and Adult Earnings of Canadian Women By Christopher Bruce; Daniel Gordon
  11. Business Cycle Fluctuations and the Life Cycle: How Important is On-The-Job Skill Accumulation? By Gary D. Hansen; Selo Imrohoroglu
  12. What determines entrepreneurial clusters? By Luigi Guiso; Fabiano Schivardi
  13. A History of Japan’s Foreign Aid Policy: From Physical Capital to Human Capital By Furuoka, Fumitaka
  14. Resources and student achievement – evidence from a Swedish policy reform By Fredriksson, Peter; Öckert, Björn
  15. Commitment or Control? Human Resource Management Practices in Female and Male-Led Businesses By Verheul, I.
  16. Flessibilità e istituzioni nel mercato del lavoro: dagli economisti classici agli economisti istituzionalisti By Pasquale Tridico
  17. Unemployment - Stage or Stigma? Being Unemployed During an Economic Boom By Emer Smyth
  1. By: Svitlana Maksymenko; M. Rabbani
    Abstract: . . .
    JEL: O10 O15 O47 O53
    Date: 2007–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pit:wpaper:330&r=hrm
  2. By: Merike Darmody (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)); Emer Smyth (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)); Selina McCoy (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI))
    Date: 2007–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp213&r=hrm
  3. By: Olusegun A. Akanbi (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria); Niek J. Schoeman (Bureau for Economic Policy and Analysis (BEPA))
    Abstract: This paper reports on research aimed at measuring the determinants of education spending in Africa and secondly, investigates whether expenditure on education in Africa optimizes social welfare. The empirical estimations are carried out using a public choice model on a panel of 29 selected African countries over the period 1995-2004. The results show that government expenditure on education is not resilient to shocks and the education sector is not seriously affected by allocative changes that favour corruption. However, expenditure on education in Africa does not comply with the rules outlined by the IMF in terms of their fiscal adjustment program.
    Date: 2007–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:200707&r=hrm
  4. By: Djavad Salehi-Isfahani; Daniel Egel
    Abstract: Youth Exclusion in Iran: The State of Education, Employment and Family Formation
    Keywords: Youth Exclusion in Iran: The State of Education, Employment and Family Formation
    Date: 2007
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vpi:wpaper:e07-2&r=hrm
  5. By: Baalen, P.J. van; Karsten, L. (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University)
    Abstract: Management research and education are often characterized as being interdisciplinary. However, most discussions on what interdisciplinarity in management studies means have bogged down in ideological fixations. In this paper we alternatively take a historical perspective and analyze the evolution of the interdisciplinarity concept in management studies during the last decades in the Netherlands. We distinguish between two opposite versions of interdisciplinarity: a synoptic (conceptual) and an instrumental (pragmatic) one. Both versions resulted from different knowledge strategies (boundary-work) of competing and cooperating disciplines. We conclude that in the Netherlands instrumental versions of interdisciplinarity in management research and education prevailed.
    Keywords: Interdisciplinarity;disciplinarity;management science;management education;history of management education;
    Date: 2007–09–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:300011799&r=hrm
  6. By: Verheul, I.; Stel, A.J. van (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University)
    Abstract: Most studies investigating the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth treat entrepreneurs as a homogeneous group. This study investigates the impact of entrepreneurial diversity on national economic growth. Using data for 36 countries participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor we investigate whether the impact on growth depends on socio-demographic diversity in entrepreneurship (in terms of age, education and gender). We find that in less developed countries older and higher educated entrepreneurs are particularly important for stimulating economic growth, while for developed countries younger entrepreneurs are more important. Accordingly, policy should aim at stimulating particular groups of entrepreneurs, rather than just the number of entrepreneurs.
    Keywords: entrepreneurship;diversity;economic development;
    Date: 2007–10–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:300011915&r=hrm
  7. By: Joseph Kaboski; Trevon D. Logan
    Abstract: The existing literature on skill-biased technical change has not considered how the technological endowment itself plays a role in the returns to skill. This paper constructs a simple model of skill biased technical change which highlights the role that resource endowments play in the returns to education. The model predicts variation in returns to education with skill biased technological change if there is significant heterogeneity in resource endowments before the technological change. Using a variety of historical sources, we document the heterogeneous technology levels by region in the American past. We then estimate the returns to education of high school teachers in the early twentieth century using a new data source. a report from the U.S. Commissioner of Education in 1909. Overall, we find significant regional variation in the returns to education that match differences in resource endowments, with large (within-occupation) returns for the Midwest and Southwest (7%), but much lower returns in the South (3%) and West (0.5%). We also show that our results are generalizable to returns to education in the United States and that returns to education for teachers tracked quite closely with the overall returns to education from 1940 onward.
    JEL: I2 J2 J3 N3
    Date: 2007–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13589&r=hrm
  8. By: Nekby, Lena (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS); Rödin, Magnus (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS); Özcan, Gülay (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS)
    Abstract: This paper explores the identity formation of a cohort of students with immigrant backgrounds in Sweden and the consequences of identity for subsequent educational attainment. Unique for this study is that identity is defined according to a two-dimensional acculturation framework based on both strength of identity to the (ethnic) minority and to the (Swedish) majority culture. Results indicate that integrated men are associated with significantly higher levels of education than assimilated men. No differences in educational attainment are found between the assimilated and the integrated for women. These results put into question the premise of oppositional identities, i.e., a trade-off between ethnic identity and educational achievement, among immigrants in Sweden.
    Keywords: Ethnic Identity; Acculturation; Ethnic minorities; Education
    JEL: J15 J16 J21 Z13
    Date: 2007–11–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sulcis:2007_006&r=hrm
  9. By: Jeanette Findlay; Patricia Findlay; Chris Warhurst
    Abstract: This research paper was commissioned and funded by the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC). It is being disseminated through the TUC’s unionlearn High Road project. The project is part of a community programme called Equal – a European Social Fund initiative that tests and promotes new means of combating all forms of discrimination and inequality in the labour market. The GB Equal Support Unit is managed by ECOTEC. Unionlearn is the TUC organisation that supports union-led strategies on learning and skills. It helps unions open up learning and skills opportunities for their members and to develop trade union education for their representatives and officers.
    Date: 2007–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2007_38&r=hrm
  10. By: Christopher Bruce; Daniel Gordon
    Date: 2007–10–26
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clg:wpaper:2007-11&r=hrm
  11. By: Gary D. Hansen; Selo Imrohoroglu
    Abstract: We study the effects of on-the-job skill accumulation on average hours worked by age and the volatility of hours over the life cycle in a calibrated general equilibrium model. Two forms of skill accumulation are considered: learning by doing and on-the-job training. In our economy with learning by doing, individuals supply more labor early in the life cycle and less as they approach retirement than they do in an economy without this feature. The impact of this feature on the volatility of hours over the life cycle depends on the value of the intertemporal elasticity of labor supply. When individuals accumulate skills by on-the-job training, there are only weak effects on both the steady-state labor supply and its volatility over the life cycle.
    JEL: E32 J22 J24
    Date: 2007–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13603&r=hrm
  12. By: Luigi Guiso; Fabiano Schivardi
    Abstract: We contrast two potential explanations of the substantial di¤erences in entrepreneurial activity observed across geographical areas: entry costs and external effects. We extend the Lucas model of entrepreneurship to allow for heterogeneous entry costs and for externalities that shift the distribution of entrepreneurial talents. We show that these assumptions have opposite predictions on the relation between entrepreneurial activity and .rm level TFP: with di¤erent entry costs, in areas with more entrepreneurs firms' average productivity should be lower and vice versa. We test these implications on a sample of Italian firms and unambiguously reject the entry costs explanation in favor of the externalities one. We also investigate the sources of external e¤ects, finding robust evidence that learning externalities are an important determinant of cross-sectional differences in entrepreneurial activity.
    Keywords: Entrepreneurship, clustering, agglomeration economies
    JEL: D24 D62 J23
    Date: 2007
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eui:euiwps:eco2007/48&r=hrm
  13. By: Furuoka, Fumitaka
    Abstract: This paper critically reviews Japan’s experience from being an aid recipient after the World War Second to becoming a leading donor of Official Development Assistance (ODA) since the 1990s. Of particular significance is the new trend of Japanese aid policy in which Japan stressed the importance of human capital rather than physical capital. Under the new guidelines which were first announced in 1991, Japanese government has paid more attentions to spend their money for human capital investment in developing countries, such as educations, health care, rather than physical investment, such as constructions of dams or highways.
    Keywords: foreign aid; Japan; human capital; history
    JEL: F35
    Date: 2007–11–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:5654&r=hrm
  14. By: Fredriksson, Peter (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation); Öckert, Björn (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation)
    Abstract: This paper utilizes a policy change to estimate the effect of teacher density on student performance. We find that an increase in teacher density has a positive effect on student achievement. The baseline estimate – obtained by using the grade point average as the outcome variable – implies that resource increases corresponding to the class-size reduction in the STAR-experiment (i.e., a reduction of 7 students) improves performance by 2.6 percentile ranks (or 0.08 standard deviations). When we use test score data for men, potentially a more objective measure of student performance, the effect of resources appears to be twice the size of the baseline estimate.
    Keywords: Student performance; teacher/student ratio; policy reform; differences-in-differences
    JEL: I21 I28 J24
    Date: 2007–10–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2007_026&r=hrm
  15. By: Verheul, I. (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University)
    Abstract: This paper investigates the commitment-orientation of HRM practices in female- and male-led firms. A distinction is made between emphasizing commitment or control in the design of HRM practices. To test for gender differences use is made of a sample of 555 Dutch firms. Contrary to what is generally believed it is found that ? when controlled for relevant factors related to the business (e.g., firm size, age, sector) ? HRM in female-led firms is more control-oriented than that in male-led firms. More specifically, female-led firms are more likely to be characterized by fixed and clearly defined tasks, centralized decision-making and direct supervision of the production process.
    Keywords: gender;entrepreneurship;human resource management;commitment;control;
    Date: 2007–10–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:300011916&r=hrm
  16. By: Pasquale Tridico (Department of economics, University of Roma Tre (Italy))
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore, through a review of the literature, the wage theory and the institutions of the labor market, in the thought of some classical, institutional, keynesian and marginal economists, whose contribution has been fundamental for the economic theory and for the analysis of the labor market in particular. The objective is to show that, except for the marginal economists, the economic system does not converge spontaneously towards the equilibrium of the labor market, and unemployment positions and rigid wages are empirically prevailing and theoretically justified phenomena. Moreover, the flexibility of the labor market, with respect to both wages and permanent adjustments of labor to firms, does not seem the most appropriate policy which guarantees full employment and greater productivity. On the contrary, such a relation is strongly questioned at theoretical and empirical level.
    Keywords: mercato del lavoro, produttività, istituzioni economiche.
    JEL: J08 J24 B52
    Date: 2007
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rcr:wpaper:07_06&r=hrm
  17. By: Emer Smyth (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI))
    Date: 2007–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp215&r=hrm
This nep-hrm issue is ©2007 by Fabio Sabatini. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.
This page is being maintained by Thomas Krichel. It was last updated on 2023‒07‒08 at 11:56.