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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Cunha, Flavio (University of Pennsylvania); Heckman, James J. (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the recent literature on the production of skills of young persons. The literature features the multiplicity of skills that explain success in a variety of life outcomes. Noncognitive skills play a fundamental role in successful lives. The dynamics of skill formation reveal the interplay of cognitive and noncognitive skills, and the presence of critical and sensitive periods in the life-cycle. We discuss the optimal timing of investment over the life-cycle. |
| Keywords: | skill formation, cognitive skills, noncognitive skills, technology of skill formation, investment in children |
| JEL: | J13 J24 D91 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5050&r=hrm |
| By: | Chiswick, Barry R. (Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago); Miller, Paul W. (Business School, University of Western Australia) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the incidence of the mismatch of the educational attainment and the occupation of employment, and the impact of this mismatch on the earnings, of high-skilled adult male immigrants in the US labor market. Analyses for high-skilled adult male native-born workers are also presented for comparison purposes. The results show that over-education is widespread in the high-skilled US labor market, both for immigrants and the native born. The extent of over-education declines with duration in the US as high-skilled immigrants obtain jobs commensurate with their educational level. Years of schooling that are above that which is usual for a worker’s occupation are associated with very low increases in earnings. Indeed, in the first 10 to 20 years in the US years of over-education among high-skilled workers have a negative effect on earnings. This ineffective use of surplus education appears across all occupations and high-skilled education levels. Although schooling serves as a pathway to occupational attainment, earnings appear to be more closely linked to a worker’s occupation than to the individual’s level of schooling. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants; Skill; Schooling; Occupations; Earnings; Rates of Return |
| JEL: | F22 I21 J24 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2010–07–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sulcis:2010_007&r=hrm |
| By: | Leandro Prados de la Escosura |
| Abstract: | The pessimistic flavour of the Human Development Reports appears to be in contradiction with their own numbers as developing countries fare comparatively better in human development than in per capita GDP terms. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by providing a new, ‘improved’ human development index [IHDI], informed by welfare economics. The IHDI is presented here alongside the UNDP’s HDI for the world and its main regions since the late nineteenth century. Social dimensions in the IHDI are derived, following Kakwani (1993), with a convex achievement function, while a geometric average is employed to combine its dimensions (longevity, knowledge, and income). Thus, the IHDI does not conceal the gap between rich and poor countries and casts a much less optimistic view than the conventional UNDP index, while fits with the UNDP concern for international differences. The paper’s findings highlight main weaknesses in human development dimensions of present-day developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Human development, Life expectancy, Education, Per capita GDP |
| JEL: | O15 I00 N30 O50 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp10-07&r=hrm |
| By: | Michael Keane (School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Sydney) |
| Abstract: | I survey the male and female labor supply literatures, focusing on implications for effects of wages and taxes. For males, I describe and contrast results from three basic types of model: static models (especially those that account for nonlinear taxes), life-cycle models with savings, and life-cycle models with both savings and human capital. For women, more important distinctions are whether models include fixed costs of work, and whether they treat demographics like fertility and marriage (and human capital) as exogenous or endogenous. The literature is characterized by considerable controversy over the responsiveness of labor supply to changes in wages and taxes. At least for males, it is fair to say that most economists believe labor supply elasticities are small. But a sizeable minority of studies that I examine obtain large values. Hence, there is no clear consensus on this point. In fact, a simple average of Hicks elasticities across all the studies I examine is 0.30. Several simulation studies have shown that such a value is large enough to generate large welfare costs of income taxation. For males, I conclude that two factors drive many of the differences in results across studies. One factor is use of direct vs. ratio wage measures, with studies that use the former tending to find larger elasticties. Another factor is the failure of most studies to account for human capital returns to work experience. I argue that this may lead to downward bias in elasticity estimates. In a model that includes human capital, I show how even modest elasticities – as conventionally measured – can be consistent with large welfare costs of taxation. For women, in contrast, it is fair to say that most studies find large labor supply elasticities, especially on the participation margin. In particular, I find that estimates of “long run†labor supply elasticities – by which I mean estimates that allow for dynamic effects of wages on fertility, marriage, education and work experience – are generally quite large. |
| Date: | 2010–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uts:wpaper:160&r=hrm |
| By: | Xavier Pautrel (Université de Nantes, Laboratoire d’Économie et de Management de Nantes (LEMNA), Institut d’Économie et de Management de Nantes - IAE) |
| Abstract: | This note shows that the assumptions about the abatement technology modify the impact of the environmental taxation (both the size and the “direction”) on the long-run growth driven by human capital accumulation à la Lucas (1988), when the source of pollution is private consumption and lifetime is finite. When the human capital’s share in the abatement services production is higher (respectively lower) than in the final output production, a higher environmental tax reduces (resp. increases) the allocation of human capital in production sectors (abatement service and final output) and boostes (resp. decreases) the BGP rate of growth. When abatement services are produced with the final output, the environmental taxation does not influence growth. |
| Keywords: | Growth, Environment, Overlapping Generations, Human capital, Finite Lifetime, Abatement |
| JEL: | Q5 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2010.70&r=hrm |