|
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Mishra, Tapas (World Population Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria); Jumah, Adusei (Department of Economics and Finance, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria, and Department of Economics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria); Parhi, Mamata (BETA, Louis-Pasteur University, Strasbourg, France) |
| Abstract: | This paper models total factor productivity (TFP) in space and proposes an empirical model for TFP interdependence across spatial locations. The interdependence is assumed to occur due to age-structured human capital dynamics. A semi-parametric spatial vector autoregressive framework is suggested for modeling spatial TFP dynamics where the role of demographic state and technological change are explicitly incorporated in the model to influence their spatial TFP co-movements. Empirical scrutiny in case of Asian countries suggests that cross-country human capital differences in their accumulation and appropriation pattern significantly influenced TFP volatility interdependence. The finding of complementarity in TFP in spatial locations calls for joint policy program for improving aggregate and individual country welfare. |
| Keywords: | Total factor productivity, Spatial growth, Non-linearity, Human capital, Age-structure, Semi-parametric VAR |
| JEL: | C14 C31 E61 N10 O30 O47 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:226&r=hrm |
| By: | Felipe Balmaceda |
| Abstract: | This paper studies firm-provided training in the presence of the following labor market policies: minimum wages, unemployment benefits, firing costs, and severance payments. I show that in high minimum wage economies, a more intense use of labor market policies reduces firm-provide training, while in low minimum wage economies, this may result in more training. The results of the paper are used to shed light on the relationship between the skill-premium and labor-market policies. In particular, I show that the skill premium is non-decreasing in the strictness of employment-protection legislation and non-increasing with the minimum wage and unemployment benefits. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edj:ceauch:252&r=hrm |
| By: | Sabarwal, Shwetlena (World Bank); Terrell, Katherine (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | Using 2005 firm level data for 26 ECA countries, this paper estimates performance gaps between male- and female-owned businesses, while controlling for their location by industry and country. We find that female entrepreneurs have significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales revenues) and are less efficient in terms of Total Factor Productivity (TFP), although this difference is very small. However, they generate the same amount of profit per unit of revenue as men. We find that while both male and female entrepreneurs in ECA are sub-optimally small, women's returns to scale are significantly larger than men's implying that they would gain more from increasing their scale. We argue that the main reasons for the sub-optimal size of female-owned firms are that they are both capital constrained and concentrated in industries with small firms. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, finance, gender, Eastern Europe, Central Asia |
| JEL: | D24 M21 O12 O16 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3758&r=hrm |
| By: | Erber, Georg (Department of Information Society and Competition, DIW Berlin â German Institute for Economic Research); Madlener, Reinhard (E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN)) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of ICT- and non-ICT capital, and of labour at different skill levels, on productivity and employment in the financial intermediation sector of twelve EU member countries plus the US and Japan. A stochastic possibility frontiers (SPF) approach is applied to assess the relation between the production inputs and to compute both time-varying and average inefficiencies. For the empirical analysis, annual data from 1995 to 2005 are employed that were obtained from recently released data contained in the EU KLEMS database. The results obtained shed some light on the relative impact of ICT- and non-ICT capital and labour inputs, and provide new insights about the structural dynamics between these factor inputs. We find that the financial sectors in the twelve EU member states studied are quite similar in terms of efficiency, and that efficiency and productivity depends much more on human capital than on physical capital. We conclude that learning-by-doing and learning-by-using are more decisive elements in shaping the productivity growth path than ICT investment alone, which can leave managers and employees overwhelmed by the complexity and needs of structural adjustments in the companiesâ organisation. |
| Keywords: | stochastic production possibility frontiers; ICT; structural dynamics |
| JEL: | C23 C51 D23 E23 O33 O47 O57 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:fcnwpa:2008_005&r=hrm |
| By: | Jesse Rothstein |
| Abstract: | Growing concerns over the achievement of U.S. students have led to proposals to reward good teachers and penalize (or fire) bad ones. The leading method for assessing teacher quality is "value added" modeling (VAM), which decomposes students' test scores into components attributed to student heterogeneity and to teacher quality. Implicit in the VAM approach are strong assumptions about the nature of the educational production function and the assignment of students to classrooms. In this paper, I develop falsification tests for three widely used VAM specifications, based on the idea that future teachers cannot influence students' past achievement. In data from North Carolina, each of the VAMs' exclusion restrictions are dramatically violated. In particular, these models indicate large "effects" of 5th grade teachers on 4th grade test score gains. I also find that conventional measures of individual teachers' value added fade out very quickly and are at best weakly related to long-run effects. |
| JEL: | I21 J24 J33 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14442&r=hrm |
| By: | Riddell, Craig; Boudarbat, Brahim; Lemieux, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the evolution of the returns to human capital in Canada over the period 1980-2006. Most of the analysis is based on Census data, and on weekly wage and salary earnings of full-time workers. Our main finding is that the returns to education increased substantially for Canadian men between 1980 and 2000, in contrast to conclusions reached in previous studies. For example, the adjusted wage gap between men with exactly a bachelors’ degree and men with only a high school diploma increased from 34 percent to 43 percent during this period. Most of this rise took place in the early 1980s and late 1990s. Returns to education also rose for Canadian women, but the magnitudes of the increases were more modest. For instance, the adjusted BA-high school wage differential among women increased about 4 percentage points between 1980 and 1985 and remained stable thereafter. Results based on Labour Force Survey data show the upward trend in returns to education has recently been reversed for both men and women. Another important development is that after fifteen years of expansion (1980-1995), the return to work experience measured by the wage gap between younger and older workers declined between 1995 and 2000. Finally, we find little difference between measures based on means and those based on medians of log wages for both genders. Also, the use of broader earnings measures (such as including self-employment earnings, using weekly earnings of all workers, or using annual earnings of full-time workers) does not alter the main conclusions from the analysis based on weekly wage and salary earnings of full-time workers. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Wage Differentials, Returns to Education, Canada |
| Date: | 2008–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:bricol:craig_riddell-2008-15&r=hrm |
| By: | Aydemir, Abdurrahman (Statistics Canada); Chen, Wen-Hao (Statistics Canada); Corak, Miles (University of Ottawa) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the intergenerational education mobility of Canadian men and women born to immigrants. A detailed portrait of Canadians is offered, as are estimates of the degree of generational mobility among the children of immigrants. Persistence in the years of schooling across the generations is rather weak between immigrants and their Canadian born children, and a third as strong as for the general population. Parental earnings is not correlated with years of schooling for second generation children, and if anything negatively correlated. Finally we find that the intergenerational transmission of education has not changed across the birth cohorts of the post-war period. |
| Keywords: | immigrants, education, intergenerational mobility |
| JEL: | F22 I20 J62 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3759&r=hrm |
| By: | Yasser Abdih; Frederick L. Joutz |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of public capital on private sector output by testing and estimating an aggregate production function for the U.S. economy over the postwar period augmented to include the stock of public capital as an additional factor input. We use patent applications to proxy for knowledge/technology stocks and adjust labor hours for changes in human capital or skill. Using Johansen's (1988 and 1991) multivariate cointegration analysis, we find a positive and significant long run effect of public capital, private capital, skilladjusted labor, and technology/ knowledge on private sector output. We find that public capital accounts for about half of the post-1973 productivity slowdown, but only plays a minor role in the partial recovery of labor productivity growth since the mid 1980s. The largest contribution to that (partial) recovery comes from the knowledge stock and human capital. |
| Keywords: | Human capital , Public finance , Private sector , Capital , Labor productivity , Economic growth , Economic models , Economic policy , Working Paper , |
| Date: | 2008–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:08/218&r=hrm |
| By: | Mann, Jitendar S. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital, |
| Date: | 2008–01–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:umaees:7563&r=hrm |
| By: | Stefan Bauernschuster (University of Jena); Oliver Falck (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Stephan Heblich (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena) |
| Abstract: | This paper tests the importance of social contacts on entrepreneurship. To measure differences in the interconnectedness of social contacts, we compare rural and agglomerated areas. A smaller community size in rural areas generates greater network closure. Agents’ neighborhoods are more likely to overlap, which intensifies social contacts and thus facilitates resource mobilization. Analyzing the impact of social contacts across regions, we find that greater network closure increases the likelihood of being an entrepreneur by 1.9 to 14.2 percentage points, depending on the number of underlying social contacts. These results remain robust after applying matching techniques and concentrating on young entrepreneurs. |
| Keywords: | Occupational Choice, Entrepreneurship, Social Contacts |
| JEL: | J Z13 |
| Date: | 2008–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2008-079&r=hrm |
| By: | Hiroshi Sato; Li Shi |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the intergenerational correlation of education in rural China. The focus is on the influence of family class origin (jiating chengfen), the political label hung on every family throughout the Maoist era. A nationally representative cross-sectional household survey for 2002 is used. It is shown that the effects of family class origin on family members' educational attainment varies across historical periods. Regarding the educational level of male heads of household with landlord/rich peasant background, we found a drop caused by the class-based discrimination in the Maoist era and a rebound in the postreform era. It was also found that family class origin remains significant for the educational achievement of the current younger generation. Children aged 16-18 who are of landlord/rich peasant and middle peasant origins are more likely to achieve higher educational attainment. We conclude that a class-specific, education-oriented family culture has been shaped first as a mixture of family cultural capital inherited from the pre-Maoist era and surfacing again in the postreform era, and, second, as intergenerational cultural reaction against class-based discrimination during the Maoist era. |
| Keywords: | education, intergenerational correlation, class origin, family culture, social discrimination |
| JEL: | D31 J24 N35 O15 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd08-007&r=hrm |
| By: | Aurora A.C. Teixeira (INESC Porto, CEMPRE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Todd Davey (Muenster University of Applied Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Institutions of higher education have an important role in the generation of high tech ‘entrepreneurial capacity’. Being entrepreneurship in Portugal an emergent phenomenon there is an urgent need to better understand and develop this area not only by analysing the ‘supply side’ (i.e., the courses taught in this field) but also the ‘demand side’, that is, the attitudes of students, future potential entrepreneurs, to new venture creation. Based on 4413 responses of students enrolled in Portuguese higher education institutions, gathered in June-July 2008, we found, using a multivariate model, that students who had already created a firm although, on average, possess larger entrepreneurial experience and knowledge, they do not reveal high risk propensity or creativity. Those students that have taken some steps to create new businesses and, to a larger extent, those foreseeing their future career as owning their business have higher risk and creative profiles. Students who live in an environment which ‘breads’ entrepreneurship have stronger desire to become entrepreneurs. This supports the contention that entrepreneurship is a learned process and that school, teachers, and other institutions and individuals may encourage entrepreneurial behaviours. ‘Role models’ seem indeed to constitute a key factor fostering entrepreneurship among Portuguese higher education students – in the Portuguese case, the entrepreneur and entrepreneurial company references are, respectively, Belmiro de Azevedo and Sonae. Although in a descriptive analysis students enrolled in non-university (e.g., polytechnics) and private higher education institutions reveal higher effective and potential entrepreneurial propensities, when we (simultaneously) control for a vast number of factors which are likely to affect entrepreneurship propensity, such differences cease to be statistically relevant. Students’ personality (risk, creativity) and demographic traits (gender and age), competencies and familiarity with entrepreneurship (entrepreneurial experience, knowledge, awareness, interest), and contextual factors (professional experience, role models) are important determinants of entrepreneurial propensity, whereas the type of higher education institutions (public vs private, non-university vs university), and, to some extent, the degree (postgraduate vs undergraduate), and the scientific area, fail to emerge as key determinants. |
| Keywords: | students; entrepreneurship; attitudes |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:298&r=hrm |
| By: | Nicholas Apergis; Claire Economidou; Ioannis Filippidis |
| Abstract: | The paper estimates an empirical model that is consistent with a variety of R&D-driven model of growth where technology is transmitted via trade to other industries, both domestically and internationally, by being embodied in differentiated intermediate goods. The evidence is based on data from 21 manufacturing industries in six EU countries for the period 1980-1997. The contribution of the paper lies in showing how by including human capital in the model and employing suitable econometric procedures, the magnitude of R&D spillovers reported in the existing literature can be affected, while pointing to a major role of human capital in economic growth process. |
| Keywords: | total factor productivity, technology spillovers, human capital, panel cointegration, manufacturing industries |
| JEL: | C23 F1 L6 O33 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:0830&r=hrm |