nep-hrm New Economics Papers
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management
Issue of 2011‒07‒27
ten papers chosen by
Tommaso Reggiani
Universita' di Bologna

  1. On the impact of the TFP growth on the employment rate: does training on-the-job matter? By Eva Moreno-Galbis
  2. Migration and Education By Christian Dustmann; Albrecht Glitz
  3. Real Business Cycles with a Human Capital Investment Sector and Endogenous Growth: Persistence, Volatility and Labor Puzzles By Jing Dang; Max Gillman; Michal Kejak
  4. Teams or Tournaments? A Field Experiment on Cooperation and Competition among University Students By Bigoni, Maria; Fort, Margherita; Nardotto, Mattia; Reggiani, Tommaso
  5. The Return on Human Capital: the Case of UK Non-executive Directors that are also Executive Directors By Charlie Weir; Oleksandr Talavera; Alexander Muravyev
  6. Humanistic management and self-determination theory: the impact of the ‘perception of work supervision’ on employees’ ‘self-regulated motivation’: an empirical french study By Stéphanie Arnaud; ; ;
  7. The Effect of an Acute Health Shock on Work Behavior: Evidence from Different Health Care Regimes By Datta Gupta, Nabanita; Kleinjans, Kristin J.; Larsen, Mona
  8. Impact of Cultural Diversity on Wages and Job Satisfaction in England By Simonetta Longhi
  9. Human resource motivation in Romanian public administration - The European Union enlargement context By Cornea, Cătălin-Ionuț
  10. Procrastination in Teams, Contract Design and Discrimination By Philipp Weinschenk

  1. By: Eva Moreno-Galbis
    Keywords: TFP growth, unemployment, training, human capital depreciation, capitalization, creative destruction effect
    JEL: J23 J24 O33
    Date: 2010–12–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tep:teppwp:wp1015&r=hrm
  2. By: Christian Dustmann (CReAM, University College London); Albrecht Glitz (CReAM, Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
    Abstract: Sjaastad (1962) viewed migration in the same way as education: as an investment in the human agent. Migration and education are decisions that are indeed intertwined in many dimensions. Education and skill acquisition play an important role at many stages of an individual’s migration. Differential returns to skills in origin- and destination country are a main driver of migration. The economic success of the immigrant in the destination country is to a large extent determined by her educational background, how transferable these skills are to the host country labour market, and how much she invests into further skills after arrival. The desire to acquire skills in the host country that have a high return in the country of origin may also be an important reason for a migration. From an intertemporal point of view, the possibility of a later migration may also affect educational decisions in the home country long before a migration is realised. In addition, the decisions of migrants regarding their own educational investment, and their expectations about future migration plans may also affect the educational attainment of their children. But migration and education are not only related for those who migrate or their descendants. Migrations of some individuals may have consequences for educational decisions of those who do not migrate, both in the home and in the host country. By easing credit constraints through remittances, migration of some may help others to go to school. By changing the skill base of the receiving country, migration may change incentives to invest in certain types of human capital. Migrants and their children may create externalities that influence educational outcomes of non-migrants in the destination country. This chapter will discuss some of the key areas that connect migration and education.
    Keywords: Migration, Education, Human Capital, Return Migration, Immigrant Selection, Second-generation Immigrants.
    Date: 2011–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2011011&r=hrm
  3. By: Jing Dang (State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC)); Max Gillman (Institute of Economics - Hungarian Academy of Sciences); Michal Kejak (The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education of Charles University (CERGE EI))
    Abstract: An identical two-sector productivity shock causes Rybczynski (1955) and Stolper and Samuelson (1941) effects that release leisure time and initially raise the relative price of human capital investment so as to favor it over goods production. Modified by having the household sector produce human capital investment sector, the RBC model follows the international approach of Maffezzoli (2000) and so adds a second sector relative to Jones et al. (2005). This captures key major US RBC data: output growth persistence, with hump-shaped impulse responses; hump-shaped physical capital investment impulse responses; Gali's (1999) negative impulse response of labour supply; and hours volatility.
    Keywords: real business cycle, human capital, endogenous growth
    JEL: E24 E32 O41
    Date: 2011–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:1128&r=hrm
  4. By: Bigoni, Maria (University of Bologna); Fort, Margherita (University of Bologna); Nardotto, Mattia (Telecom - Paris Tech); Reggiani, Tommaso (University of Bologna)
    Abstract: This paper assesses the effect of two stylized and antithetic non-monetary incentive schemes on students’ effort. We collect data from a field experiment where incentives are exogenously imposed, performance is monitored and individual characteristics are observed. Students are randomly assigned to a tournament scheme that fosters competition between coupled students, a cooperative scheme that promotes information sharing and collaboration between students and a control treatment in which students can neither compete, nor cooperate. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that competition induces higher effort with respect to cooperation and cooperation does not increase effort with respect to the baseline. However, this is true only for men, while women do not seem to react to non-monetary incentives.
    Keywords: education, field experiments, incentives, competition, cooperation
    JEL: A22 C93 I20
    Date: 2011–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5844&r=hrm
  5. By: Charlie Weir (Aberdeen Business School); Oleksandr Talavera (School of Economics, University of East Anglia); Alexander Muravyev (Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA))
    Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between directors' human capital and the company’s performance. In particular, we focus on the effect of non-executive directors who are also executive in other firms (independent executives, IE). The analysis is based on a unique dataset of publicly traded firms in the UK which we obtain by matching Extel Financial and Corporate Register data. Our results suggest a positive relationship between the presence of IE on corporate board and company performance. The effect is stronger IEs come from well performing firms. Additionally, the similarity of industries plays a role.
    Keywords: human capital, corporate board, non-executive directors
    JEL: G34 G39
    Date: 2011–07–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:aepppr:2011_29&r=hrm
  6. By: Stéphanie Arnaud; (CEREFIGE - ICN Business School); ;
    Abstract: We study the main principles of “humanist philosophy”, in order to interpret them in terms of human resources management (HRM) practices. We show the similarities between a “humanist HRM” and the recommendations of the self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 2000). Then, we describe a French empirical study (568 questionnaires). Our ‘perception of the work supervision scale’ is very satisfactory. Our ‘self-regulated motivation scale’ is bi-dimensional. The structural equations model is satisfactory (X²/dl: 2.91; RMSEA: 0.08; GFI: 0.907). Results show the crowding-out / crowding-in effect of self-regulated motivation by a type of management perceived as controlling / informative and autonomy supportive. So there is a crowding-in effect of employees’ self-regulated motivation by a humanist HRM.
    Keywords: Humanist philosophy, Human Resource Management, self-regulated motivation, self-determination, structural equations model
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fie:wpaper:1107&r=hrm
  7. By: Datta Gupta, Nabanita (Aarhus School of Business); Kleinjans, Kristin J. (California State University, Fullerton); Larsen, Mona (SFI - Danish National Centre for Social Research)
    Abstract: We study how severe acute health shocks affect the probability of not working in the U. S. versus in Denmark. The results not only provide insight into how relative disease risk affects labor force participation at older ages, but also into how different types of health care and health insurance systems affect individual decisions of labor force participation. We find that the effect of an acute health shock on labor force participation is stronger in the U.S. than in Denmark, and provide compelling evidence that this is the result of health care system-related differential mortality and baseline health differences.
    Keywords: health shock, health care regimes, work
    JEL: I12 I18 J26
    Date: 2011–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5843&r=hrm
  8. By: Simonetta Longhi (Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex and IZA)
    Abstract: This paper combines individual data from the British Household Panel Survey and yearly population estimates for England to analyse the impact of cultural diversity on individual wages and on different aspects of job satisfaction. Do people living in more diverse areas have higher wages and job satisfaction after controlling for other observable characteristics? The results show that cultural diversity is positively associated with wages, but only when cross-section data are used. Panel data estimations show that there is no impact of diversity. Using instrumental variables to account for endogeneity also show that diversity has no impact.
    Keywords: Cultural Diversity, Wages, Job Satisfaction.
    JEL: J28 J31
    Date: 2011–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2011010&r=hrm
  9. By: Cornea, Cătălin-Ionuț
    Abstract: Intrinsic motivation is widely considered by public administration scholars as fundamental for the Public Service Motivation (PSM). In apparently contradiction with the theory of PSM, the extrinsic motivation techniques, such as financial incentives, function better in Romanian public organizations, the reason being in general connected with the payment level for the public servants and their expectations for the work performed. In the context of new legal obligations arisen in the period of joining the European Union, Romanian public authorities recruited more employees. After 2008, influenced by lower budgets and political changes, this dynamic of human resources was inverted, in some places with very significant personnel fluctuations, leading to major misbalances of public service. Public servants cannot be motivated if they do not have the intrinsic motivation specific for the work in public service as defined by PSM theory. Thus, we consider that the actual recruiting system of public servants in Romania need to be reformed to introduce in public sector well equipped individuals. Although intrinsic, PSM is not immutable and can be lost. Public servants can loose PSM because of extrinsic motivational factors (low salary, lack of promotion, permanent structural changes of the organization, manager's disregard for procedures / law).
    Keywords: public administration; reform; human resources; public service motivat ion
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nsu:apasro:367&r=hrm
  10. By: Philipp Weinschenk (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn)
    Abstract: We study a dynamic model of team production with moral hazard. We show that the players begin to invest effort only shortly before the time limit when the reward for solving the task is shared equally. We explore how the team can design contracts to mitigate this form of procrastination and show that the second-best optimal contract is discriminatory. We investigate how limited liability or the threat of sabotage influences the team’s problem. It is further shown that players who earn higher wages can be worse off than teammates with lower wages and that present-biased preferences can mitigate procrastination.
    Keywords: Moral Hazard, team production, partnerships, procrastination, contract design, discrimination
    JEL: D82 M52 L22 J71
    Date: 2011–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2011_13&r=hrm

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