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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Raul Ramos (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Jordi Suriñach (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Manuel Artís (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses the link between human capital and regional economic growth in the European Union. Using different indicators of human capital calculated from census microdata, we conclude that the recent economic performance of European regions is associated to an increase in overeducation. In fact, measures of educational mismatch seem to have a stronger connection to regional economic performance than other traditional measures of human capital stocks. |
| Keywords: | Regional economic growth, human capital, educational mismatch, overeducation |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:200904&r=hrm |
| By: | Bednarik, Radek; Filipova, Lenka |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we focus on the research of the impact of religion and political regime on human capital and economic development. There is a lot of incentive literature concerning the impact of political regime and religion on the economic development. However, we use different approach to show the mutual dependence of variables and offer another aspect of economic development relating to religion which is secularization and the principle of equal rights. We use three equation model to verify two hypotheses in our paper. The first, that differences in GDP per capita among countries determined by technological progress are influenced by religion and political regime. The second, that there is the interplay between GDP and educational level and education and political regime. |
| Keywords: | economic development; political regime; religion; human capital |
| JEL: | O10 C33 |
| Date: | 2009–04–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14556&r=hrm |
| By: | Lombardo, Vincenzo |
| Abstract: | We evaluate whether and how the persistence of inequality and the presence of inequality traps carry over the persistence of poverty and possible aggregate economic inefficiencies. We propose a microeconomic formalization of one possible definition of poverty and of the behaviour of poor and rich agents. Poverty is defined as lack of or low societal participation, which is source of both a direct private benefit and an indirect gain. Analysing poverty under the individual rational choice, we are able to endogeneize the threshold amount of the participation good needed to join the additional indirect benefit as well as the threshold level of income - the poverty line - needed to buy that amount; further we find the conditions for their existence which in turn determine also their level. In an overlapping generation structure we show that in economies starting largely poor two equilibria exist; one low locally stable equilibrium to which low and middle-income class converge and one upper locally unstable over the which richer classes of income enter an explosive path, with unbounded growth rates of personal income. In the rich regime the whole population enter the explosive path, with unbounded growth rates. We are able to enrich the dynamics a là Galor and Zeira (1993) in an economic environment with perfect capital markets, instead of the assumption of markets imperfections, by introducing a methodological innovation which connects the presence of the externality in the human capital accumulation of the children directly to the preference of parents. By further restricting the functional form of the initial income distribution to be lognormal we find that the mean income and the variance (i.e. inequality) of the richer part of the distribution are always higher than the ones of the lower part; moreover, while within the poor class inequality tends to zero in the very long-run, within the richer class inequality is increasing at an increasing rate. Finally, a negative relation between initial inequality and economic growth is observed. The inequality traps which cause the poor regime to emerge are also sources of aggregate economic inefficiencies, which can be eliminated by reducing income disparities accordingly. |
| Keywords: | Poverty; economic growth; inequality traps; human capital; endogenous preference |
| JEL: | D31 J24 O40 |
| Date: | 2008–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14511&r=hrm |
| By: | Catherine Rodríguez; Fabio Sánchez T. |
| Abstract: | Using a unique combination of household and violence data sets and a duration analysis methodology, this paper estimates the effect that exposure to armed conflict has on school drop-out decisions of Colombian children between the ages of six and seventeen. After taking into account the possible endogeneity of municipal conflict related events through the use of instrumental variables, we find that armed conflict reduces the average years of schooling in 8.78% for all Colombian children. This estimate increases to 17.03% for children between sixteen and seventeen years old. We provide evidence that such effect may be induced mainly through higher mortality risks, and to lesser extent due to negative economic shocks and lower school quality; all of which induce a trade-off between schooling and child labor. |
| Date: | 2009–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:005400&r=hrm |
| By: | Ana Rute Cardoso; Elsa Fontainha; Chiara Monfardini |
| Abstract: | We analyze a mechanism that has been disregarded in the literature on parental investment in children, as little attention has been devoted to the choices made by children themselves. We model directly time use by youngsters into activities related to the acquisition of human capital, considering not just the decision on study time, but also on socialization/networking at young age, which can enhance personal interaction skills. We provide new empirical evidence for three European countries (France, Italy and Germany) on the link between time allocation by parents and time allocation by youngsters, highlighting country-specific patterns as well as cross-country differences. We run fractional regression models and double hurdle models on multi-member household micro data on time use. Countries diverge concerning the association between parents and youngsters allocation of time to socializing and to reading and studying activities, with Italy standing out as the country where that association, in particular between youngster and mother, is strongest. Our results are consistent with different mechanisms: parental role model directly influencing children behavior, intergenerational transmission of preferences, or network effects, as individuals adapt their behavior to social patterns. |
| Keywords: | study time; socializing, networking, youth, intergenerational transmission of preferences, fractional regression models, double hurdle models |
| JEL: | J22 J24 J13 C21 C24 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpc:wplist:wp17_08&r=hrm |
| By: | Neagu, Ileana Cristina |
| Abstract: | The initial occupational placements of male immigrants in the U.S. labor market vary significantly by country of origin even when education and other factors are taken into account. Does the heterogeneity persist over time? Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 U.S. Censuses, this study finds that the performance of migrants from countries with lower initial occupational placement levels improves at a higher rate compared with that of migrants originating from countries with higher initial levels. Nevertheless, the magnitude of convergence suggests full catch-up is unlikely. Country specific attributes are found to have less direct impact on the rate of assimilation than on the initial performance. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,International Migration,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement, |
| Date: | 2009–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4891&r=hrm |
| By: | Theodore Palivos (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia); Dimitrios Varvarigos (Department of Economics, University of Leicester) |
| Abstract: | We construct a simple model of education and growth in which young adults (children) spend a fraction of their time and old adults (parents) spend a fraction of their income on education. Both a strategic complementarity and an intergener- ational externality in the creation of human capital are present. The interactions between each pair of consecutive generations lead to rich dynamics. We show that multiple growth equilibria arise, some of them periodic and some aperiodic. We also ?nd a negative correlation between volatility and growth, without a one-way causal relationship between the two being, necessarily, present. Rather this negative correlation is driven by the structural characteristics of the economy. |
| Keywords: | Education, Human Capital, Economic Growth. |
| JEL: | E32 O41 |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcd:mcddps:2009_08&r=hrm |
| By: | Aldave, Iván (Central Bank of Peru and GREQAM); García-Peñalosa, Cecilia (GREQAM and CNRS) |
| Abstract: | The empirical evidence on the determinants of growth across countries has found that growth is lower when natural resources are abundant, corruption widespread and educational attainment low. An extensive literature has examined the way in which these three variables can impact growth, but has tended to address them separately. In this paper we argue that corruption and education are interrelated and that both crucially depend on a country’s endowment of natural resources. The key element is the fact that resources affect the relative returns to investing in human and in political capital, and, through these investments, output levels and growth. In this context, inequality plays a key role both as a determinant of the possible equilibria of the economy and as an outcome of the growth process. |
| Keywords: | natural resources, corruption, human capital, growth, inequality |
| JEL: | O11 O13 O15 |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rbp:wpaper:2009-005&r=hrm |
| By: | Stefan Krabel (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena); Donald S. Siegel (University at Albany, SUNY); Viktor Slavtchev (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena) |
| Abstract: | We conjecture that the mobility of academic scientists increases the propensity of such agents to engage in academic entrepreneurship. Our empirical analysis is based on a survey of researchers at the Max Planck Society in Germany. We find that mobile scientists are more likely to become nascent entrepreneurs. Thus, it appears that citizenship and foreign-education are important determinants of the early stages of academic entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | Academic Entrepreneurship, Human Capital, Scientific Mobility, Knowledge Transfer, Immigrant Entrepreneurship |
| JEL: | L26 O31 |
| Date: | 2009–04–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2009-026&r=hrm |
| By: | Pekkarinen, Tuomas (Helsinki School of Economics); Uusitalo, Roope (VATT, Helsinki); Kerr, Sari (Charles River Associates) |
| Abstract: | The Finnish comprehensive school reform replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and significantly reduced the degree of heterogeneity in the Finnish primary and secondary education. We estimate the effect of this reform on the test scores in the Finnish Army Basic Skills test. The identification strategy relies on a differences-in-differences strategy and exploits the fact that the reform was implemented gradually across the country during a six-year period between 1972 and 1977. We find that the reform had a small positive effect on the verbal test scores but no effect on the mean performance in the arithmetic or logical reasoning tests. Still in all tests the reform improved the scores of students from families where parents had only basic education. |
| Keywords: | education, school system, tracking, comprehensive school, test scores |
| JEL: | H52 I21 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4058&r=hrm |
| By: | Amedeo Piolatto (Universidad de Alicante) |
| Abstract: | The literature on vouchers often concludes that a voucher-based system cannot be the outcome of a majority vote. This paper shows that it is possible to propose selective vouchers (of exogenous value) such that the majority of voters are in favour of selective vouchers. As long as the introduction of vouchers does not undermine the existence of public schools, introducing selective vouchers induces a Pareto improvement. Some agents use vouchers in equilibrium to buy private education, while the poorest agents continue attending public schools and enjoy an increase in per-capita expenditure. |
| Keywords: | positive public economics; education; vouchers; voting. |
| JEL: | H42 I20 I22 I28 I29 D70 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2009-10&r=hrm |
| By: | Claudia Trentini (EUI Florence); Lídia Farré (Universidad de Alicante) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the implications of major ¯nancial markets crises for the human capital accumulation decisions of households. We use data for Argentinean households over the period 1995-2002 to examine households' response to negative idiosyncratic income shocks in di®erent macroeconomic scenarios. In particular we study how teenagers' school progress responds to household head unemployment during periods of high economic growth and compare it to the response during recession years, when families are more likely to be ¯nancially constrained. After accounting for the potential endogeneity of household head unemployment we ¯nd that school failure in response to unemployment shocks increases during periods of economic instability and that, at least for boys, this results from a greater involvement in labor market activities. Our results add to the existing literature on the long term cost of macroeconomic crises. |
| Keywords: | imperfect credit markets, human capital, parental unemployment |
| JEL: | D52 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2009-07&r=hrm |
| By: | Bauer, Michal (Charles University, Prague); Chytilová, Julie (Charles University, Prague) |
| Abstract: | Heterogeneity in time discounting may reinforce the existing barriers to save and invest faced by rural populations in developing countries. We elicit a subjective discount rate for a varied sample of Ugandan villagers. In accordance with other studies, we have found the discount rate to decrease with education. We examine this correlation further by testing the causal effect of education and exploit two different sources of its variation: school frequency across villages and the number of the respondents' school-going years that overlap with the era of the dictator Idi Amin's rule. For men, we find that education has a significant impact on their discount rate, similar in magnitude for both types of instruments and robust to observable characteristics. This finding highlights the importance of education in development. |
| Keywords: | time discounting, patience, education, economic development, Uganda |
| JEL: | C93 D91 O12 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4057&r=hrm |
| By: | Francis Vella (Georgetown University); Lídia Farré (Universidad de Alicante); Roger Klein (Rutgers University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the degree of intergenerational transmission ofeducation for individuals from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth1979. Rather than identifying the causal effect of parental education viainstrumental variables we exploit the feature of the transmissionmechanism responsible for its endogeneity. More explicitly, we assume theintergenerational transfer of unobserved ability is invariant to the economicenvironment. This, combined with the heteroskedasticity resulting from theinteraction of unobserved ability with socioeconomic factors, identifies thiscausal effect. We conclude the observed intergenerational educationalcorrelation reflects both a causal parental educational effect and a transferof unobserved ability. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility, endogeneity, conditional correlation |
| JEL: | C31 J62 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2009-11&r=hrm |