nep-hrm New Economics Papers
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management
Issue of 2011‒09‒22
twelve papers chosen by
Tommaso Reggiani
Universita' di Bologna

  1. Can A Draft Induce More Human Capital Investment in the Military? By Timothy Perri
  2. Returns to Education across Europe By Glocker, Daniela; Steiner, Viktor
  3. Technical Appendix to "Demographic Change, Human Capital and Welfare" By Alexander Ludwig; Thomas Schelkle; Edgar Vogel
  4. A Human Relations Paradox By Hans Gersbach; Hans Haller
  5. Knowledge and Job Opportunities in a Gender Perspective: Insights from Italy By Angela Cipollone; Marcella Corsi; Carlo D'Ippoliti
  6. Returns to Education and Smoking : Evidence from Germany By Julia Reilich
  7. Taxing capital is not a bad idea indeed: the role of human capital and labor-market frictions By Chen, Been-Lon; Chen, Hung-Ju; Wang, Ping
  8. Right for the Job: Over-Qualified or Under-Skilled? By Glenda Quintini
  9. Firms’ human capital, R&D and innovation: a study on French firms. By Gallié, Emilie-Pauline; Legros, Diego
  10. Who pays for job training? By Anurag N Banerjee; Parantap Basu
  11. Lying and Team Incentives By Conrads, Julian; Irlenbusch, Bernd; Rilke, Rainer Michael; Walkowitz, Gari
  12. International Trade and Unemployment - the Worker-Selection Effect By Marco de Pinto; Jochen Michaelis

  1. By: Timothy Perri
    Abstract: We consider the possibility a draft increases the likelihood individuals will invest in human capital in the military. This possibility exists because those drafted have less time to reap the return from human capital investment. A draft is more likely to increase human capital investment in the military the larger the civilian return to human capital investment, the shorter the additional time one must spend in the military if one invests while enlisted, and the larger the cost to an individual of obtaining a deferment. Key Words: Conscription, volunteer military, and human capital
    JEL: H56 J24 J45
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:11-15&r=hrm
  2. By: Glocker, Daniela; Steiner, Viktor
    Abstract: Incentives to invest in higher education are affected by both the direct wage effect of human capital investments and the indirect wage effect resulting from lower unemployment risks and shorter spells in unemployment associated with higher educated. We analyse the returns to education in Austria, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom, countries which differ significantly regarding both their education systems and labour market structure. We estimate augmented Mincerian wage equations accounting for the effects of unemployment on individual wages using EU-SILC data. Across countries we find a high variation of the effect of education on unemployment duration. Overall, the returns to education are estimated to be the highest in the UK, and the lowest for Sweden. A wage decrease due to time spent in unemployment results in a decline in the hourly wages in Austria, Germany and Italy.
    Keywords: EU-SILC; returns to education; unemployment
    JEL: H42 I21 J31
    Date: 2011–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8568&r=hrm
  3. By: Alexander Ludwig (Universität zu Köln); Thomas Schelkle (London School of Economics); Edgar Vogel (Universität Mannheim)
    Abstract: This appendix of our paper, "Demographic Change, Human Capital and Welfare", contains further material that could not be included in the paper due to space limitations. It is organized as follows. Section A contains the formal equilibrium definition. Section B provides more results on the fit of our model to observed life-cycle profiles of hours and wages, the implied labor-supply elasticities of our model, additional results on predicted aggregate variables during the demographic transition as well as the associated welfare effects and a sensitivity analysis. Our population model is explained in Section C. Details on our computational procedures can be found in Section D.
    Keywords: Population aging; Human capital; Rate of return; Distribution of welfare
    JEL: C68 E17 E25 J11 J24
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:append:08-168&r=hrm
  4. By: Hans Gersbach; Hans Haller
    Abstract: We present a variant of a general equilibrium model with group formation to study how changes of non-consumptive beneï¬ts from group formation impact on the well-being of group members. We identify a human relations paradox: Positive externalities increase, but none of the group members gains in equilibrium. Moreover, a member who experiences an increase of positive emotional beneï¬ts in a group may become worse off in equilibrium.
    Keywords: group formation, competitive markets, human relation, exit
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vpi:wpaper:e07-29&r=hrm
  5. By: Angela Cipollone; Marcella Corsi; Carlo D'Ippoliti
    Abstract: By considering the case of Italy we show that despite much rhetoric and expectations about the fact that women have gradually overcome men in terms of educational attainments, they still lack behind in terms of the main skills and competencies that can profitably be used in the market. On the one hand, women lack both general and specific knowledge related to the labour market, on the other hand the skills and competencies they acquire by carrying on unpaid work do not seem to be positively valued by the market. However, women also appear to exhibit higher returns to knowledge, both in terms of returns to education and of returns to work-related knowledge. Women’s employment is more determined by the joint impact of care burdens and knowledge-determined opportunities, and their wages are more significantly affected by our indicators of knowledge. More than for men, while specialisation improves “insider” women’s wages, it reduces “outsider” women’s ability to obtain a job.
    Keywords: gender differentials; returns to knowledge; human capital
    JEL: J24 J16 C43 J71 C14
    Date: 2011–02–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dul:wpaper:2013/97186&r=hrm
  6. By: Julia Reilich
    Abstract: Looking at smoking-behavior it can be shown that there are differences concerning the time-preference-rate. Therefore this has an effect on the optimal schooling decision in the way that we appear a lower average human capital level for smokers. According to a higher time-preference-rate additionally we suppose a higher return to education for smokers who go further on education. With our empirical findings we can confirm the presumptions. We use interactions-terms to regress the average rate of return with IV. Therefore we obtain that smokers have a significantly higher average return to education than non-smokers.
    Date: 2011–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pot:vwldis:103&r=hrm
  7. By: Chen, Been-Lon; Chen, Hung-Ju; Wang, Ping
    Abstract: In a second-best optimal growth setup with only factor taxes as available instruments, is it optimal to fully replace capital by labor income taxation? The answer is generally positive based on Chamley, Judd, Lucas, and many follow-up studies. In the present paper, we revisit this important tax reform-related issue by developing a human capital-based endogenous growth framework with frictional labor search and matching. We allow each firm to create multiple vacancies and each worker to determine labor market participation endogenously. We consider a benevolent fiscal authority to finance direct transfers to households and unemployment compensation only by factor taxes. We then conduct dynamic tax incidence exercises using a model calibrated to the U.S. economy with a pre-existing 20% flat tax on both the capital and labor income. Our numerical results suggest that, due to a dominant channel via the interactions between the firm's vacancy creation and the worker's market participation, it is optimal to switch partly by a modest margin from capital to labor taxation in a benchmark economy where human capital formation depends on both the physical and human capital stocks. When the human capital accumulation process is independent of physical capital, the optimal tax mix features a slightly larger shift from capital to labor taxation; when we remove the extensive margin of the labor-leisure trade-off, such a shift is much larger. In either case, however, the optimal capital tax rate is far above zero.
    Keywords: Tax Incidence; Endogenous Human Capital Accumulation; Labor-Market Search and Matching Frictions
    JEL: E62 H22 O40 J20
    Date: 2011–08–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33209&r=hrm
  8. By: Glenda Quintini
    Abstract: Ensuring a good match between skills acquired in education and on the job and those required in the labour market is essential to make the most of investments in human capital and promote strong and inclusive growth. Unfortunately, in the OECD on average, about one in four workers are over-qualified – i.e. they possess higher qualifications than those required by their job – and just over one in five are under-qualified – i.e. they possess lower qualifications than those required by their job. In addition, some socio-demographic groups are more likely than others to be over-qualified – notably, immigrants and new labour market entrants who take some time to sort themselves into appropriate jobs – or under-qualified – notably, experienced workers lacking a formal qualification for the skills acquired on the labour market…
    Date: 2011–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:120-en&r=hrm
  9. By: Gallié, Emilie-Pauline; Legros, Diego
    Abstract: This article investigates the effects of human capital and technological capital on innovation. While the role of technological capital as measured by research and development (R&D) expenditure has been intensively investigated, few studies have been made on the effect of employee training on innovation. This article explores the relationship between innovation and firm employee training. Our methodological approach contributes to the literature in three ways. We propose various indicators of firm employee training. We build a count data panel with a long time-data series to deal with the issue of firms’ heterogeneity. We propose a dynamic analysis. Using dynamic count data models on French industrial firms over the period 1986–1992, we find positive and significant effects of R&D intensity and training on patenting activity. Whatever the indicators of training our results show that the firm employee training has a positive impact on technological innovation.
    Keywords: Patents; R&D; Employee training; Count panel data; Linear feedback model;
    JEL: C23 C25 J24 L60 O31
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:dauphi:urn:hdl:123456789/6962&r=hrm
  10. By: Anurag N Banerjee (Durham Business School); Parantap Basu (Durham Business School)
    Abstract: An optimal education subsidy formula is derived using an overlapping generations model with parental altruism. The model predicts that public education subsidy is greater in economies with lesser parental altruism because a benevolent government has to compensate for the shortfall in private education spending of less altruistic parents with a finite life. On the other hand, growth is higher in economies with greater parental altruism. Cross-country regressions using the World Values Survey for altruism lend support to our model predictions. The model provides insights about the reasons for higher education subsidy in richer countries.
    Date: 2011–02–16
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dur:durham:2011_08&r=hrm
  11. By: Conrads, Julian (University of Cologne); Irlenbusch, Bernd (University of Cologne); Rilke, Rainer Michael (University of Cologne); Walkowitz, Gari (University of Cologne)
    Abstract: We investigate the influence of two widespread compensation schemes, individual piece-rates and team incentives, on participants' inclination to lie, by adapting the experimental setup of Fischbacher and Heusi (2008). Lying turns out to be more pronounced under team incentives than under individual piece-rates, which highlights a so far fairly neglected feature of these compensation schemes.
    Keywords: compensation schemes, lying, team, experiment
    JEL: C91 C92 M52
    Date: 2011–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5968&r=hrm
  12. By: Marco de Pinto (University of Kassel); Jochen Michaelis (University of Kassel)
    Abstract: This paper analyzes how trade liberalization influences the unemployment rate of workers with different abilities. We refine the Melitz (2003) framework to account for trade unions and heterogeneous workers, who differ with respect to their abilities. Our main ?findings are: (i) high ability workers profit from trade liberalization in terms of higher wages and higher employment; (ii) the least efficient workers loose their job and switch to long-term unemployment (worker-selection effect); (iii) if a country is endowed with a large fraction of low-skilled workers, trade liberalization leads to a rise in aggregate unemployment. In this case, trade liberalization may harm a countrys welfare.
    Keywords: trade liberalization, trade unions, skill-specific unemployment
    JEL: F1 F16 J5
    Date: 2011
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201127&r=hrm

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