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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Tselios, Vassilis |
| Abstract: | Does inequality matter for regional growth? This paper addresses this question by using microeconomic data for more than 100,000 individuals over a period of 5 years from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) dataset, complemented with Eurostat's Regio data, in order to examine the impact of income and educational distribution on regional economic growth. Educational distribution is measured in terms of educational achievement as well as educational inequality, and income distribution in terms of income per capita and income inequality, not only for the whole of the population, but also for normally working people. Our results indicate that, given existing levels of inequality, an increase in a region's income and educational inequality has a significant positive relationship with subsequent economic growth. Nevertheless, the reverse does not seem to be the case, as we do not find a causal link between growth and changes in inequality levels. Despite the fact that educational achievement is positively correlated with economic growth, the results also suggest that inequalities in income and educational attainment levels matter more for economic performance than average income and educational attainment, respectively. Initial income levels, in contrast, are irrelevant for regional economic growth as they are very sensitive to the inclusion of control variables. |
| Keywords: | Income inequality,educational attainment,educational inequality,economic growth,regions,Europe/growth |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:dynreg34&r=hrm |
| By: | Partridge, Jamie; Furtan, Hartley |
| Abstract: | We use an augmented national ideas production function to examine skilled immigrants' impact on Canadian innovation at the provincial level. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data by province on innovation flow over an 11 year time period, where innovation flow is defined in terms of international (U.S.) patents. It was found that skilled immigrants, who are proficient in either English or French, have a significant and positive impact on innovation flow in their home province. Further, in examining skilled immigrants by source region, it was found that skilled immigrants from developed countries have the greatest impact on their home province's innovation flow. This is true of North American/European skilled immigrants for all skill-level categories including language proficiency, education, and immigrant class. For immigrants from developing countries, only highly educated Eastern Europeans and Low Income Asians classified as "Independent Workers" are both significant and positively related to their home province's innovation flow. |
| Keywords: | Canada, endogenous technological change, innovation, national ideas, production function, patents, skilled immigrants, Labor and Human Capital, |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea08:6504&r=hrm |
| By: | Michael Clemens; Satish Chand |
| Abstract: | Does the emigration of highly-skilled workers deplete local human capital? The answer is not obvious if migration prospects induce human capital formation. We analyze a unique natural quasi-experiment in the Republic of the Fiji Islands, where political shocks have provoked one of the largest recorded exoduses of skilled workers from a developing country. Mass emigration began unexpectedly and has occurred only in a well-defined subset of the population, creating a treatment group that foresaw likely emigration and two different quasi-control groups that did not. We use rich census and administrative microdata to address a range of concerns about experimental validity. This allows plausible causal attribution of post-shock changes in human capital accumulation to changes in emigration patterns. We show that high rates of emigration by tertiary-educated Fiji Islanders not only raised investment in tertiary education in Fiji; they moreover raised the stock of tertiary educated people in Fiji—net of departures. |
| Keywords: | migration, human capital, fiji |
| JEL: | F22 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:152&r=hrm |
| By: | de Luna, Xavier (Department of Statistics, Umeå University); Stenberg, Anders (SOFI, Stockholm University); Westerlund, Olle (Department of Economics, Umeå University) |
| Abstract: | Several studies have suggested that education is associated with later retirement from the labour market. In this paper, we examine whether adult education, involving enrolees aged 42 or above, delays retirement to potentially increase labour force participation among the elderly. With Swedish register data of transcripts from adult education and an-nual earnings, which encompasses 1979-2004 and 1982-2004 respectively, we exploit the fact that adult education is a large-scale phenomenon in Sweden and construct a measure of the timing of the transition from being self-supported by productive work to being supported by pension transfers. We match samples of treated and controls on the propen-sity score and use non-parametric estimation of survival rates. The results indicate that adult education has no effect on the timing of the retirement from the labour force. This can be contrasted with the fact that adult education is one of the cornerstones of the OECD strategy for “active ageing” and the European Union’s “Lisbon strategy” for growth and jobs. |
| Keywords: | Human capital; Pensions; Elderly; Adult schooling |
| JEL: | H52 H55 H75 I28 J14 J26 |
| Date: | 2008–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:0756&r=hrm |
| By: | Badibanga, Thaddee M. |
| Abstract: | Since the abolition of its Apartheid regime in 1994, South Africa has launched a massive program of education, which has been financed through resources representing on average 21% of the national budget or 7% of GDP. Today, the GDP share of public spending on education is 1.3 times the average of industrialized countries (5.4%) and almost twice that of developing countries (3.9%). In this paper, we simulate fiscal policy experiments to analyze the growth and welfare effects of a shift in the allocation of government expenditures between public spending on education and transfers as well as those of a change in the tax rate in a model of endogenous growth with human capital accumulation for the South African economy. The results of simulations demonstrate that a shift in the allocation of fiscal resources between educational spending and transfers does not affect the long run allocation decisions. In the transition, however, this shift generates a negative effect on the rate of growth of GDP. In fact, a reallocation of expenditures shifts resources away from saving and toward consumption, and translate into lower rate of growth but higher welfare. Nonetheless, these growth and welfare effects are very small. On the other hand, a tax cut generates growth effects in the long run as well as in transition. In fact, reducing or cutting the tax rate in the long run lowers the interest rate, which in turn creates disincentives for saving and results in low rate of growth of GDP. However, in the transition, it reduces or removes distortions and translates into high work effort, high accumulation of human capital, and thus high rate of growth of GDP. Nonetheless, its welfare effect is negative. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal Policy, Government Expenditures and Education, Growth Model, International Development, Labor and Human Capital, E62, H52, O41, |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea08:6431&r=hrm |
| By: | Sequeira, Tiago Neves |
| Abstract: | There is a family of models with Physical, Human capital and R&D for which convergence properties have been discussed (Arnold, 2000a; G´omez, 2005). However, spillovers in R&D have been ignored in this context. We introduce spillovers in this model and derive its steady-state and stability properties. This new feature implies that the model is characterized by a system of four differential equations. A unique Balanced Growth Path along with a two dimensional stable manifold are obtained under simple and reasonable conditions. Transition is oscillatory toward the steady-state for plausible values of parameters. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:unlfep:wp532&r=hrm |
| By: | Jordan, Jeff; Castillio, Marco; Ferraro, Paul J.; Petrie, Regan |
| Abstract: | We experimentally investigate the distribution of children's time preferences along gender and racial lines. Black boys have significantly larger discount rates than any other demographic group. Discount rates among Black girls are comparable to rates among White girls. Although White boys exhibit higher discount rates than girls, the difference is small and not statistically significant. These results are robust to alternative measures of patience and to regression analyses that control for socio-economic background and school performance. The measured differences in discount rates are large. All things equal, a Black boy requires expected returns to education 13-15% higher than Black girls to compensate for his larger discounting of future payoffs. Equally importantly, we show that impatience, as measured by discount rates, has a direct effect on behavior. An increase of one standard deviation in the discount rate increases by 5 percent the probability that a child incurs at least 3 school-related disciplinary actions. This result suggests that experiments capture new and relevant information on children. Overall, our results suggests that time preferences might play a large role in setting appropriate incentives for children. Understanding the factors behind these differences in preferences is an important area for future research. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital, |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea08:6368&r=hrm |
| By: | Wempi, Saputra; Budhi , Setiawan; Erkata , Yandri |
| Abstract: | Indonesia is one of the world important suppliers of young trainees in Japan. We present a preliminary study’s result on Indonesian trainees in Japanese SMEs and their potential to develop micro-small business in Indonesia. This paper utilizes three step approaches. First, an online survey of potency of Indonesian trainees in Japan has been conducting since October 2007 followed up by a Japan-wide Entrepreneurship and Banking Trainings (PWEP). Second, web-based business start-ups consultation forums for Indonesian trainees have been conducted since January 2008 followed up by networking creation with Bank of Indonesia. Third, a key performance indicator of business proposed and money invested was developed. We report three main findings: first, over 70% of Indonesian trainees were working at manufacturing-based Japanese SMEs and might acquire a necessary human capital in developing micro-small manufacturing-based business start-ups. In addition, more than 60% of them could save their income at least 25-40% of their total monthly income, suggested that capital foundation required for business creation might then be compromised. Second, the structural constraint of unmonitored Indonesian trainees might cause problems in which—after having cultural distress while working in Japan and less conducive condition in managing their capital after returning to Indonesia—the potential to become an law-breaking overstay workers is considerably high and might cause a more sophisticated problem in the future. Third, the importance of directing step for Indonesian trainees who are interested in creating businesses and key performance indicators for measuring its achievement are acknowledged. |
| Keywords: | Indonesian trainees; Japanese SMEs; PWEP; capital accumulation; key performance indicator; compliance meter |
| JEL: | J61 J24 L26 |
| Date: | 2008–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:11491&r=hrm |
| By: | Frenette, Marc |
| Abstract: | This study estimates the effect of an additional year of schooling (Grade 10) on academic performance, with the particular aim of understanding the role of schooling in shaping the gender and income divides in academic performance. To identify the returns to schooling, the study takes advantage of a setting whereby standardized tests were administered to large samples of students of very close age, but who were in different school grades as a result of school-entry laws, thus creating a sharp discontinuity in school grades. The findings suggest that one additional year of high school (Grade 10) is associated with a large improvement in overall reading and mathematics performance, and that it had a smaller improvement in science performance. However, the improvements are not equally distributed: mathematics scores improve more for boys than for girls, and reading and science scores improve more for lower than for higher income youth. Most importantly, we find no evidence that girls or higher income youth benefit more from an additional year of high school in any test area. These findings suggest that the key to understanding the weaker academic performance of boys and lower income youth may lie in earlier school years, the home or at birth. |
| Keywords: | Education, training and learning, Literacy, Outcomes of education |
| Date: | 2008–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2008317e&r=hrm |
| By: | Michalopoulos, Stelios |
| Abstract: | This research examines theoretically and empirically the economic origins of ethnolinguistic diversity. The empirical analysis constructs detailed data on the distribution of land quality and elevation across contiguous regions, virtual and real countries, and shows that variation in elevation and land quality has contributed significantly to the emergence and persistence of ethnic fractionalization. The empirical and historical evidence support the theoretical analysis, according to which heterogeneous land endowments generated region specific human capital, limiting population mobility and leading to the formation of localized ethnicities and languages. The research contributes to the understanding of the emergence of ethnicities and their spatial distribution and offers a distinction between the natural, geographically driven, versus the artificial, man-made, components of contemporary ethnic diversity. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic Diversity; Geography; Technological Progress; Human Capital; Colonization |
| JEL: | O1 O43 Z13 J24 |
| Date: | 2008–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:11531&r=hrm |
| By: | Grip Andries de; Fouarge Didier; Sauermann Jan (ROA rm) |
| Abstract: | In public policy, international migration of scientists and engineers is often seen as achance of recruiting the most talented and productive workers. However, it can alsobe a risk in terms of loosing a country’s talented workers. In this paper, we analysemigration of graduates from science and engineering studies from nine Europeancountries. Using a dataset with information on personal characteristics, previousmigration experience, as well as study- and work-related variables, we analyse thedeterminants of migrating to the country of the first job and to the country of subsequentjobs after graduation. We find that not only wage gains are driving the migrationdecision. Differences in labour market opportunities related to R&D spending area strong predictor of future migration. Furthermore, past migration experiences arerelated to a higher probability of labour migration. Moreover, we find evidence ofselective migration: the best graduates are most likely to migrate. Contrary to ourexpectation, qualitative aspects of the job match such as the utilisation of skills in thejob and involvement in innovation hardly seem to matter in the decision whetheror not to migrate. Interestingly, the wage level affects migration towards countriesin continental Europe, whereas Anglo-Saxon countries seem to attract migrants duetheir larger R&D intensity. |
| Keywords: | education, training and the labour market; |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umaror:2008006&r=hrm |
| By: | Nonthakot, Phanin; Villano, Renato |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between labour migration and agricultural productivity in the Northern Province of Thailand. Drawing on maize production data from a household survey, we estimate a stochastic production function to evaluate the effects of migration, remittances and salient characteristics of migrants on the mean maize output and levels of technical efficiency. Evidence shows that remittances and number of migrant workers facilitate maize production. It was also found that remittances, duration of migration, gender and education of migrants enhance the productive capacity of maize farmers. |
| Keywords: | Migration, stochastic frontier, technical efficiency, maize, Thailand, Crop Production/Industries, Labor and Human Capital, |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare08:5981&r=hrm |
| By: | Kurka, Bernhard; Trippl, Michaela; Maier, Gunther |
| Abstract: | In today's knowledge-based global economy, highly qualified people acting as carriers of knowledge are playing a crucial role for the growth and development of organizations, cities and regions. Top-talent is regarded as the major source of innovation and competitive advantage, particularly in science and research. Highly skilled and educated workers, such as scientists and scholars, who are transferring their embodied knowledge from one place to another through geographical mobility, are referred to as knowledge spillover agents (KSA). Considering this context it is important to develop an understanding of the motivational dynamics, location factors and knowledge flows associated with mobility decisions of scientists and researchers. Based on qualitative data from in-depth interviews with Austrian scientists who are either currently staying abroad or have already returned this explorative study identifies some characteristics of scientific mobility, investigates the most relevant push and pull factors as well as sheds some light on the motivational dynamics at the individual level. acting as carriers of knowledge are playing a crucial role for the growth and development of organizations, cities and regions. Top-talent is regarded as the major source of innovation and competitive advantage, particularly in science and research. Highly skilled and educated workers, such as scientists and scholars, who are transferring their embodied knowledge from one place to another through geographical mobility, are referred to as knowledge spillover agents (KSA). Considering this context it is important to develop an understanding of the motivational dynamics, location factors and knowledge flows associated with mobility decisions of scientists and researchers. Based on qualitative data from in-depth interviews with Austrian scientists who are either currently staying abroad or have already returned this explorative study identifies some characteristics of scientific mobility, investigates the most relevant push and pull factors as well as sheds some light on the motivational dynamics at the individual level. |
| Keywords: | growth/innovation |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:dynreg30&r=hrm |