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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Maria Bigoni (University of Bologna); Gabriele Camera (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University and University of Basel); Marco Casari (University of Bologna) |
| Abstract: | We study the individual behavior of students and workers in an experiment where they repeatedly face the same cooperative task. The data show that clerical workers differ from college students in overall cooperation rates, strategy adoption and use of punishment opportunities. Students cooperate more than workers. Cooperation increases in both subject pools when a personal punishment option is available. Students are less likely than workers to adopt strategies of unconditional defection, and more likely to select strategies of conditional cooperation. Finally, students are more likely than workers to sanction uncooperative behavior by adopting decentralized punishment, and also personal punishment when available. |
| Keywords: | Non-standard subject pools, prisoner’s dilemma, peer punishment, artefactual field experiment, stranger matching |
| JEL: | C90 C70 D80 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:12-29&r=hrm |
| By: | Vanessa Mertins; Agnes Baeker (Institute for Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the EU, University of Trier) |
| Abstract: | Incentive schemes not only influence the effort provision of workers, but might also induce sorting. As drivers of self-selection, the literature mainly focuses on measures of productivity; however, other variables, such as preferences, beliefs and personality, also play a role. With this paper, we contribute to the literature on drivers of self-selection by analyzing the role of perceived wage risks as potential influences on the sorting decision. To this end, we study a sorting decision between two variable compensation systems, where both options carry wage risks. Specifically, we look at sorting between individual piece rates and team piece rates. Using experimental data, we find evidence for both risk diversification considerations and free-riding concerns (i.e., risk of teaming-up with low-productive teammates) as drivers of self-selection. However, our data does not support the concern of our experimental subjects that others actually reduce their effort when working under team compensation, as compared to individual-based compensation. |
| Keywords: | Risk perception, Sorting, Preferred rewards, Productivity |
| JEL: | M52 J33 C91 D81 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iaa:dpaper:201208&r=hrm |
| By: | Sander Hoogendoorn (University of Amsterdam); Simon C. Parker (University of Western Ontario, Richard Ivey School of Business); Mirjam van Praag (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of diversity in cognitive ability among members of a team on their performance. We conduct a large field experiment in which teams start up and manage real companies under identical circumstances. Exogenous variation in - otherwise random - team composition is imposed by assigning individuals to teams based on their measured cognitive abilities. The setting is one of business management practices in the longer run where tasks are diverse and involve complex decision-making. We propose a model in which greater ability dispersion generates greater knowledge for a team, but also increases the costs of monitoring necessitated by moral hazard. Consistent with the predictions of our model, we find that team performance as measured in terms of sales, profits and profits per share first increases, and then decreases, with ability dispersion. Teams with a moderate degree of ability dispersion also experience fewer dismissals due to few er shirking members in those teams. |
| Keywords: | Ability dispersion; team performance; field experiment; entrepreneurship; knowledge pooling; moral hazard |
| JEL: | C93 D83 J24 L25 L26 M13 M54 |
| Date: | 2012–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20120130&r=hrm |
| By: | Nakano, Makoto; Nguyen, Pascal |
| Abstract: | We analyze the role of board age on firm performance using a large sample of Japanese firms. The results reveal the existence of a significant negative relationship. After controlling for endogeneity using firm size as instrument, the effect of board age is found to be more significant, consistent with the notion that older directors are more likely to retain (relinquish) their positions in strongly (poorly) performing firms. In addition, we show that the performance of younger and high-growth firms is more sensitive to board age, which points to a risk-based explanation. Indeed, it appears that older boards are more reluctant to take risks and particularly to undertake acquisitions. Overall, the results underline the disadvantage of (re)appointing older managers since the latter tend to be more conservative, perhaps because of their shorter decision horizons or greater vested interests. |
| Keywords: | board of directors, top management, decision making, risk aversion, performance |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hcfrwp:2&r=hrm |
| By: | Ulrich Witt; Georg Schwesinger |
| Abstract: | An evolutionary tool kit is applied in this paper to explain how innate social behavior traits evolved in early human groups. These traits were adapted to the particular production requirements of the group in human phylogeny. They shaped the group members' attitudes towards contributing to the group's goals and towards other group members. We argue that these attitudes are still present in modern humans and leave their "phylogenetic footprints" also in present-day organizational life. We discuss the implications of this hypothesis for problems arising in firm organizations in relation to the coordination and motivation of organization members. |
| Keywords: | evolution, pre-adaptations, group selection, firm organization, organizational behavior, leadership |
| JEL: | B25 D03 D23 D74 M14 |
| Date: | 2012–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2012-17&r=hrm |
| By: | Joop Hartog (University of Amsterdam); Michael Sattinger (University at Albany) |
| Abstract: | The paper provides a theoretical foundation for the empirical regularities observed in estimations of wage consequences of overeducation and undereducation. Workers with more education than required for their jobs are observed to suffer wage penalties relative to workers with the same education in jobs that only require their educational level. Similarly, workers with less education than required for their jobs earn wage rewards. These departures from the Mincer human capital earnings function can be explained by Nash bargaining between workers and employers. Under fairly mild assumptions, Nash bargaining predicts a wage penalty for overeducation and a wage reward for undereducation, and further predicts that the wage penalty will exceed the wage reward. This paper reviews the established empirical regularities and then provides Nash bargaining results that explain these regularities. |
| Keywords: | Overeducation, Undereducation,; Overeducation; Undereducation; Nash bargaining; Qualitative mismatches; Mincer earnings function; Wages |
| JEL: | J31 J24 C78 C51 |
| Date: | 2012–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20120129&r=hrm |
| By: | Laszlo Goerke |
| Abstract: | A strictly risk-averse individual with an exogenous gross income in period one can acquire human capital in the same period and evade taxes. Period-two income rises with educational investments in period one and can also be hidden from tax authorities. It is shown that a greater tax deductibility of educational investments and higher individual ability induce a positive correlation between tax evasion and educational investments in period two, whereas the relationship in period one is ambiguous. These theoretical predictions can explain diverse empirical findings on the correlation between education and tax evasion. |
| Keywords: | human capital, income tax, tax evasion |
| JEL: | H24 H26 I20 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3719&r=hrm |
| By: | Spyridon Boikos (University of Milan.); Alberto Bucci (University of Milan.); Thanasis Stengos (University of Guelph.) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between per-capita human capital investment and the birth rate. Since the consequences of higher fertility (birth rate) on per-capita human capital accumulation (the so-called dilution effect) are not the same (in sign and magnitude) across different groups of countries with different birth rates, we analyze the growth impact of a non-linear dilution-effect. The main predictions of the model (concerning the relationship between population and economic growth rates) are then compared with those of a standard model in which the exogenous birth rate affects linearly and negatively (as postulated by most of the existing theoretical literature) human capital investment at the individual level. By using non-parametric techniques, we find evidence of strong nonlinearities in the total effect of fertility on human capital accumulation. This supports the idea that fertility plays a non-monotonic role in the accumulation of human capital and hence in the growth rate of an economy. The non-monotonic effect of fertility on human capital appears to be valid for OECD, as well as non-OECD countries according to our empirical results. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; Population Growth; Economic Growth; Human Capital Investment; Dilution Effects. |
| JEL: | O41 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gue:guelph:2012-13.&r=hrm |
| By: | Franziska Tollnek; Joerg Baten |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we assess the inheritance of human capital in the early modern period with a comprehensive dataset covering eight countries in Europe and Latin America. We focus on the within-household process of human capital formation. Gregory Clark suggested that the wealthy and ‘capitalist’ groups of society provided their offspring with favorable skills. We confirm this finding partially, but there is another large group that reproduces successfully: farmers. By applying age-heaping-based techniques to a dataset of more than 322,000 observations, we argue that farmers contributed significantly to the formation of human capital and, consequently, to modern economic growth. |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:008&r=hrm |
| By: | Jean-Pascal Bénassy; Elise S. Brézis (Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | This paper links the two fields of “development traps” and “brain drain”. We construct a model which integrates endogenous international migration into a simple growth model. As a result the dynamics of the economy can feature some underdevelopment traps: an economy starting with a low level of human capital can be caught in a vicious circle where low level of human capital leads to low wages, and low wages leads to emigration of valuable human capital. We also show that our model displays a rich array of different dynamic regimes, including the above traps, but other regimes as well, and we link explicitly the nature of the regimes to technology and policy parameters. |
| Keywords: | brain drain; development traps; human capital; migration. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O11 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:biu:wpaper:2012-03&r=hrm |
| By: | David Lagakos; Benjamin Moll; Tommaso Porzio; Nancy Qian |
| Abstract: | Using recently available large-sample micro data from 36 countries, we document that experience-earnings profiles are flatter in poor countries than in rich countries. Motivated by this fact, we conduct a development accounting exercise that allows the returns to experience to vary across countries but is otherwise standard. When the country-specific returns to experience are interpreted in such a development accounting framework – and are therefore accounted for as part of human capital – we find that human and physical capital differences can account for almost two thirds of the variation in cross-country income differences, as compared to less than half in previous studies. |
| JEL: | O11 O4 O57 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18602&r=hrm |