nep-hrm New Economics Papers
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management
Issue of 2009‒08‒22
ten papers chosen by
Fabio Sabatini
University of Siena

  1. Estimating complementarity between education and training By Christian Belzil; J. Hansen; Nicolai Kristensen
  2. Human Capital and Technological Progress as the Determinants of Economic Growth By Krzysztof Cichy
  3. The Inter-Related Dynamics of Dual Job Holding, Human Capital and Occupational Choice By Pouliakas, Konstantinos; Panos, Georgios; Zangelidis, Alexandros
  4. External Return to Education in Europe By Strawinski, Pawel
  5. The fractal nature of inequality in a fast growing world: new version By Guido Cozzi; Fabio Privileggi
  6. Short-term training variety for welfare recipients: the effects of different training types By Kopf, Eva
  7. Measuring Cognitive Competencies By Ulrich Trautwein
  8. "Disability and Returns to Education in a Developing Country" By Kamal Lamichhane; Yasuyuki Sawada
  9. Education Delayed: Family Structure and Postnatal Educational Attainment By Carol Ann MacGregor
  10. Overskilling Dynamics and Education Pathways By Kostas Mavromaras; Seamus McGuinness; Yin King Fok

  1. By: Christian Belzil (Department of Economics, Ecole Polytechnique - CNRS : UMR7176 - Polytechnique - X, IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor, ENSAE - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Economique, CIREQ - Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche en Economie Quantitative); J. Hansen (IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor, CIREQ - Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche en Economie Quantitative, CIRANO - Montréal - , Department of Economics, Concordia University - Concordia University); Nicolai Kristensen (Danish Institute of Governmental Research - AKF, University of Aarhus - University of Aarhus)
    Abstract: In this paper, we formulate and estimate a structural model of post-schooling training that explicitly allows for possible complementarity between initial schooling levels and returns to training. Precisely, the wage outcome equation depends on accumulated schooling and on the incidence of training. The effect of training on wage growth depends on individual permanent endowments as well as on education. We find evidence of statistically significant complementarity, i.e. the higher educated receive the highest return to the MBA-type training considered here.
    Keywords: Skill Complementarity ; Dynamic Treatment Effects ; Dynamic Programming ; Random Coefficients
    Date: 2009–03–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00365698_v1&r=hrm
  2. By: Krzysztof Cichy
    Date: 2009–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbp:nbpmis:60&r=hrm
  3. By: Pouliakas, Konstantinos; Panos, Georgios; Zangelidis, Alexandros
    Abstract: The inter-related dynamics of dual job-holding, human capital and occupational choice between primary and secondary jobs are investigated, using a panel sample (1991-2005) of UK employees from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). A sequential profile of the working lives of employees is examined, investigating, first, the determinants of multiple job-holding, second, the factors affecting the occupational choice of a secondary job, third, the relationship between multiple-job holding and job mobility and, lastly, the spillover effects of multiple job-holding on occupational mobility between primary jobs. The evidence indicates that dual job-holding may facilitate job transition, as it may act as a stepping-stone towards new primary jobs, particularly self-employment.
    Keywords: Moonlighting; Occupational Choice; Human Capital; Mobility
    JEL: J62 J22 J24
    Date: 2009–08–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16859&r=hrm
  4. By: Strawinski, Pawel (University of Warsaw)
    Abstract: This paper provides an international comparison of external rates of return to education. As is pointed out in the literature social return rate exceeds the pure technical rate of return by a considerable margin. However, measuring social return is delicate due to methodological and data problems. The exploited approach is based on a comparative advantage theory. It allows us to control for potential endogeneity problem and a self-selection into different education regimes. We find that external return is positive in all European countries. However the magnitude of these returns varies. It seems that the external return is higher in small economies in which the number of highly educated people is low.
    Keywords: return to education; private return ; social return
    JEL: I21 O15
    Date: 2009–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:iriswp:2009-09&r=hrm
  5. By: Guido Cozzi; Fabio Privileggi
    Abstract: In this paper we investigate wealth inequality/polarization properties related to the support of the limit distribution of wealth in innovative economies characterized by uninsurable individual risk. We work out two simple successive generation examples, one with stochastic human capital accumulation and one with R&D, and prove that intense technological progress makes the support of the wealth distribution converge to a fractal Cantor-like set. Such limit distribution implies the disappearance of the middle class, with a “gap” between two wealth clusters that widens as the growth rate becomes higher. Hence, we claim that in a highly meritocratic world in which the payoff of the successful individuals is high enough, and in which social mobility is strong, societies tend to become unequal and polarized. We also show that a redistribution scheme financed by proportional taxation does not help cure society’s inequality/polarization – on the contrary, it might increase it – whereas random taxation may well succeed in filling the gap by giving rise to an artificial middle class, but it hardly makes such class sizeable enough. Finally, we investigate how disconnection, a typical feature of Cantor-like sets, is related to inequality in the long run.
    Keywords: Wealth Inequality, Growth, Fractal, Polarization, Pulverization.
    JEL: C61 D31 O33
    Date: 2009–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2009_30&r=hrm
  6. By: Kopf, Eva (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany])
    Abstract: "Since 2005, jobless employable individuals have to be available for the labour market with various activation programmes helping them. One major programme is short-term training teaching certain skills or assisting in job search. However, little is known about the effectiveness of such a short programme for welfare recipients. This study evaluates the effects of seven short-term training types in the introduction period of the reform in spring 2005 on the individual probability of being regularly employed. I use large German administrative datasets and propensity score matching. The results show that within-company training has large positive effects. Furthermore, skill training is more effective than other types. However, comparing skill training participants pair-wise with others does not result in consistent positive effects." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))
    Keywords: Trainingsmaßnahme - Erfolgskontrolle, arbeitsmarktpolitische Maßnahme, berufliche Reintegration, Arbeitslosengeld II-Empfänger, Integrierte Erwerbsbiografien, IAB-Leistungsempfängerhistorik
    JEL: C13 I38 J24 J68
    Date: 2009–08–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:200917&r=hrm
  7. By: Ulrich Trautwein
    Abstract: The systematic of key cognitive competencies is of high scientific and societal relevance, as is the availability of high-quality data on cognitive competencies. In order to make well-informed decisions, politicians and educational authorities need high-quality data about the effectiveness of formal and non-formal educational environments. Similarly, researchers need strong data to test complex theoretical models about how individual biographies are shaped by the interplay between individual and institutional affordances and constraints. Innumerable data sets offer some form of information on competencies such as respondents’ years at school and their school grades. Such data are relatively easy to collect. When it comes to making informed political and educational decisions, however, there are increasing calls for a more systematic use of standardized competence tests. The production, storage, and use of standardized test data on competencies in specific domains is expensive, complex, and time-consuming, however. This chapter argues that there is a paucity of adequate data on cognitive competencies in important domains, especially of longitudinal data from standardized competence tests, and that for many important questions there are no good alternatives to high-quality standardized tests of cognitive competencies. Furthermore, it outlines some challenges in the construction and application of standardized competence tests and makes several recommendations.
    Keywords: cognitive competencies, assessment, intelligence, school grades
    Date: 2009
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsw:rswwps:rswwps86&r=hrm
  8. By: Kamal Lamichhane (Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), The University of Tokyo); Yasuyuki Sawada (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo)
    Abstract: In this paper, we estimate wage returns to investment in education for persons with disabilities in Nepal, using information on the timing of being impaired during school-age years as identifying instrumental variables for years of schooling. We employ unique data collected from persons with hearing, physical, and visual impairments as well as nationally representative survey data from the Nepal Living Standard Survey 2003/2004 (NLSS II). After controlling for endogeneity bias arising from schooling decisions as well as sample selection bias due to endogenous labor participation, the estimated rate of returns to education is very high among persons with disabilities, ranging from 19.4 to 33.2%. The coexistence of these high returns to education and limited years of schooling suggest that supply side constraints in education to accommodate persons with disabilities and/or there are credit market imperfections. Policies to eliminate these barriers will mitigate poverty among persons with disabilities, the largest minority group in the world.
    Date: 2009–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2009cf645&r=hrm
  9. By: Carol Ann MacGregor (Princeton University)
    Abstract: The rise in cohabitation and the concentration of single parenthood among the lower educated warrants an examination of postnatal educational attainment that considers differences by family structure. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, I examine the prevalence of obtaining additional education (N=3812) in the five years after a birth. Controlling for mothers? background and resources, married mothers are less likely to obtain additional education. Cohabiting mothers return to school more often than married mothers but less often than lone-mothers. Women who experience a union dissolution or divorce are also more likely to obtain additional education. Postnatal educational attainment appears to be an alternate pathway to economic security for women without stable romantic partnerships.
    Keywords: Education, Family Structure, Fragile Families
    Date: 2009–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:crcwel:1173&r=hrm
  10. By: Kostas Mavromaras (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne and IZA, Bonn); Seamus McGuinness (Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin); Yin King Fok (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne)
    Abstract: This paper uses panel data and econometric methods to estimate the incidence and the dynamic properties of overskilling among employed individuals. The paper begins by asking whether there is extensive overskilling in the labour market, and whether overskilling differs by education pathway. The answer to both questions is yes. The paper continues by asking whether overskilling is a self-perpetuating labour market state (state dependence), and whether state dependence differs by education pathway. The paper uses a dynamic random effects probit which includes Mundlak corrections and it models the initial conditions following Heckman's method. It finds that there is extensive overskilling state dependence in the workplace, and to the degree that overskilling can be interpreted as skills underutilisation and worker-job mismatch, this is an important finding. Overskilled workers with a higher degree show the highest state dependence, while workers with vocational education show none. Workers with no post-school qualifications are somewhere between these two groups. The finding that higher degree graduates suffer the greatest overskilling state dependence, combined with the well-established finding that they also suffer the highest overskilling wage penalty, offers an additional useful perspective to compare the attributes of vocational and degree qualifications.
    Keywords: Overskilling, education pathways, state dependence, dynamic estimation
    JEL: J24 J31
    Date: 2009–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2009n22&r=hrm

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