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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | James J. Heckman |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses (a) the role of cognitive and noncognitive ability in shaping adult outcomes, (b) the early emergence of differentials in abilities between children of advantaged families and children of disadvantaged families, (c) the role of families in creating these abilities, (d) adverse trends in American families, and (e) the effectiveness of early interventions in offsetting these trends. Practical issues in the design and implementation of early childhood programs are discussed. |
| JEL: | A12 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14064&r=hrm |
| By: | Takao Kobayashi (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo); Risa Sai (Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo); Kazuya Shibata (Nomura Asset Management Co., Ltd.) |
| Abstract: | This study examines life-cycle optimal consumption and asset allocation in the presence of human capital. Labor income seems like a "money market mutual fund" whose balance in one or two years is predictable but a wide dispersion results after many years, reflecting fluctuations in economic conditions. We use the Martingale method to derive an analytical solution, finding that Merton's well-known " constant-mix strategy" is still true after incorporating human capital from the perspective of "total wealth" management. Moreover, the proportion in risky assets implicit in the agent's human capital is the main factor determining the optimal investment strategy. The numerical examples suggest that young investors should short stocks because their human capital has large market exposure. As they age, however, their human capital becomes "bond-like", and thus they have to hold stocks to achieve optimal overall risk exposure. |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2008cf565&r=hrm |
| By: | Beckstead, Desmond; Brown, W. Mark; Newbold, Bruce |
| Abstract: | University degree holders in large cities are more prevalent and are growing at a more rapid pace than in smaller cities and rural areas. This relatively high rate of growth stems from net migratory flows and/or higher rates of degree attainment in cities. Using data from the 1996 and 2001 Censuses, this paper tests the relative importance of these two sources of human capital growth by decomposing degree-holder growth across cities into net migratory flows (domestic and foreign) and in situ growth: that is, growth resulting from higher rates of degree attainment among the resident populations of cities. We find that both sources are important, with in situ growth being the more dominant force. Hence, it is less the ability of cities to attract human capital than their ability to generate it that underlies the high rates of degree attainment we observe across city populations. |
| Keywords: | Education, training and learning, Business performance and ownership, Population and demography, Educational attainment, Regional and urban profiles, Mobility and migration |
| Date: | 2008–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp1e:2008019e&r=hrm |
| By: | Blunch, N. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the religion-human capital link, examining a recent household survey for Ghana. Insights from the recent anthropological literature leads to a prediction of Islam being associated with lower human capital levels than Christianity, since Islam, perhaps surprisingly, may be clustered together with Traditional/Animist religion within the group of orally based religions for the case of Ghana. While previous studies typically have only considered the main religions, thereby not allowing for heterogeneous associations in the links at the sub-group level, and also have not allowed religious affiliation to be endogenously determined, these possibilities are explored here, as well. I find a strong association between individual religious affiliation and human capital as measured by years of schooling, with Christians as a group being more literate and having completed more years of schooling than Muslims and Animists / Traditionalists, thus confirming the predictions from the conceptual framework. At the same time, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in the strength of this relationship within different types of Christianity. The instrumental variables estimation strategy proves to be preferable to OLS, while at the same yielding higher associations in the religion-human capital relations ship. In turn, this indicates that previous studies, which have typically used OLS, may have systematically underestimated the strength of the religion-human capital link. Directions for future research are also presented. |
| Keywords: | Religion, human capital, literacy and numeracy, Ghana. |
| JEL: | J24 Z12 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0770&r=hrm |
| By: | Olivier Debande (European Investment Bank, Luxembourg); Jean-Luc De Meulemeester (Université Libre de Bruxelles and SKOPE, University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze a bidimensional quality competition between two higher education sectors characterised by different preferences (academic vs. vocational) as well as cost structures, and its impact on curriculum’s provision (type and quality), both in decentralised and social welfare maximisation settings. The students are heterogenous in terms of their valuation of quality and their intellectual type. We try to illustrate in this abstract setting some stylized facts as academic drift of vocational institutions as well as addressing more normative issue as the relative merits of binary or unitary models of higher education |
| Keywords: | Higher education, competition, vertical and horizontal differentiation |
| JEL: | I21 L13 N30 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dul:wpaper:08-12rs&r=hrm |
| By: | Brian A. Jacob; Lars Lefgren; David Sims |
| Abstract: | Educational interventions are often narrowly targeted and temporary, and evaluations often focus on the short-run impacts of the intervention. Insofar as the positive effects of educational interventions fadeout over time, however, such assessments may be misleading. In this paper, we develop a simple statistical framework to empirically assess the persistence of treatment effects in education. To begin, we present a simple model of student learning that incorporates permanent as well as transitory learning gains. Using this model, we demonstrate how the parameter of interest – the persistence of a particular measurable education input – can be recovered via instrumental variables as a particular local average treatment effect. We initially motivate this strategy in the context of teacher quality, but then generalize the model to consider educational interventions more generally. Using administrative data that links students and teachers, we construct measures of teacher effectiveness and then estimate the persistence of these teacher value-added measures on student test scores. We find that teacher-induced gains in math and reading achievement quickly erode. In most cases, our point estimates suggest a one-year persistence of about one-fifth and rule out a one-year persistence rate higher than one-third. |
| JEL: | I2 I21 J20 J24 J38 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14065&r=hrm |
| By: | Gupta, Abhay |
| Abstract: | This paper considers an economy with skilled agents exchanging their services. Using Cobb-Douglas preferences, the paper shows that there exists an optimal (average welfare maximizing) skills' distribution. This optimal distribution is independent of productivity and is welfare equalizing. If the skill-distribution is not optimal, then some agents are better-off than others. In such a scenario, migration in some sectors is average-welfare improving while inviting skilled-agents in others reduces average welfare. "Productivity increase of worse-o sector" without changing the overall skills' composition of economy increases the wage gap. |
| JEL: | F22 L84 J31 J24 D51 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:9000&r=hrm |
| By: | Chul Chung; Jeremy Clark (University of Canterbury); Bonggeun Kim |
| Abstract: | This paper documents that virtually all of the growth in the skilled wage premium over the 1980’s in the United States was confined to metropolitan areas. Explanations for the growth in the skilled wage premium will therefore need to take location into account. |
| Keywords: | Skilled wage premium; Metropolitan areas |
| JEL: | J31 R23 F16 |
| Date: | 2008–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbt:econwp:08/10&r=hrm |
| By: | Freeman, Alan |
| Abstract: | bstract This unpublished paper was submitted to the May 22-23 conference on IPR at Birkbeck College, London. It analyses the distinct economic roles of culture, creation, and innovation in the Creative Industries by assessing the fitness for purpose of their statistical definitions. On this basis it proposes a method for studying the relation between creative labour and innovation. Lax usage has made the term ‘Creative Industries’ a synonym for three distinct things: creativity, culture and intellectual alienability. I use the term Cultural and Creative Sector (CCS). My aim is to distinguish Creative Labour, of which the sector is a specialist user, from Cultural Outputs, which the sector produces. These are found combined in the CCS in an advanced form, but they also exist separately outside it. In order to understand their wider economic impact – in particular, their relation to innovation and Intellectual Property – it is necessary to distinguish them. I begin from the empirical reality of the Creative Industries as currently defined which, I argue, establishes it as an ‘industrial sector’, in the economically meaningful sense that it is a specialised branch of the division of labour. Its definition, however, has yet to be aligned with this reality. This sector’s specialism is that it employs creative labour to produce cultural products. Its emergence is the outcome of two processes: a separation of mechanical from creative labour, which we inherit from the age of machines, and a revolution in service sector productivity, arising from the age of the internet. Creative labour is a general economic resource, employed both inside and outside the CCS. The CCS is the starting point of an adequate definition, because in it, creative labour is found in its most advanced and specialised form, and because in it, this kind of labour has applied to maximum effect the new service technologies which have emerged with the internet age. However, in order properly to assess its wider impact, creative labour has to be defined independent of the assumption that it only produces cultural products. This paper proposes such a definition. It outlines, on the basis of this definition, how the economic contribution of creative labour to service sector growth might be assessed. |
| Keywords: | cultural economics; creative industries; innovation; internet |
| JEL: | Z1 O3 J2 |
| Date: | 2008–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:9007&r=hrm |
| By: | A. Arrighetti; S. Curatolo; A. Lasagni |
| Keywords: | Human capital, Educational attainment, Labour demand, Labour supply, Graduate employment , Staff ratio, White Collars, Manufacturing industries, Firm size, Italy |
| JEL: | J24 J21 L60 I20 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:par:dipeco:2008-ep02&r=hrm |
| By: | Gudrun Biffl (WIFO) |
| Abstract: | The integration of migrant women and youth into the labour market depends upon institutional ramifications (in particular the immigration regime, the welfare model and the education system), on supply factors (in particular the educational attainment level and occupational skills, language competence, ethnic origin and the proximity to the ethnic cultural identity of the host country), and demand factors (in particular the composition by economic sectors, the division of work between the household, the informal and the market sector and the economic and technological development level). |
| Keywords: | Migrants, immigration policy, Gender gaps, welfare models, foreign born, citizenship, third country origin, second generation, education system, labour market integration |
| Date: | 2008–05–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2008:i:320&r=hrm |
| By: | Elizabeth Cascio; Damon Clark; Nora Gordon |
| Abstract: | It is widely documented that U.S. students score below their OECD counterparts on international achievement tests, but it is less commonly known that ultimately, U.S. native adults catch up. In this paper, we explore institutional explanations for differences in the evolution of literacy over young adulthood across wealthy OECD countries. We use an international cross-section of micro data from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS); these data show that cross-country differences in the age profile of literacy skills are not due to differences in individual family background, and that relatively high rates of university graduation appears to explain a good part of the U.S. "catch up." The cross-sectional design of the IALS prevents us from controlling for cohort effects, but we use a variety of other data sources to show that cohort effects are likely small in comparison to the differences by age revealed in the IALS. We go on to discuss how particular institutional features of secondary and postsecondary education correlate, at the country level, with higher rates of university completion. |
| JEL: | F0 I2 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14073&r=hrm |
| By: | Stephen Coelen; Sevin� Rende; Doug Fulton |
| Abstract: | Weaknesses of the continuum from high school education into the Connecticut workforce include the following: (1) Too many highly qualified high school students do not go on to college at all; (2) Too many high school students neglect to apply to in-State colleges or are not accepted in the in- State college of their choice; leaving the State, they often remain in their out-of-state community to work (3) Too many additional students transfer from in-State to Out-of-State colleges during college and these, in great numbers, do not return to Connecticut in their post college years; (4) Too many students, wherever trained, may start in the Connecticut labor market but fail to stay in Connecticut employment for very long; and (5) Too many, starting college, fail to complete college, making college an expensive and uncertain proposition, while improving students' completion rates would promote greater efficiency in the use of student and State resources. |
| Keywords: | high school education; college education; workplace success; CAPT testing; SAT testing |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:cceast:2007-apr-01&r=hrm |
| By: | Othman, Norfaizah Bt; Sulaiman, Muna Bt; Zainudin, Norlita Bt; Hasan, Zubair |
| Abstract: | The nature and pace of economic progress in a country depends, among others, on the venturesome qualities of its people. The development of entrepreneurship has, therefore, been taken as an important element in human development sphere in Malaysia. In fact, the Malaysian Government has restructured it entrepreneurship department, hence the birth of Ministry of Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development (MECD) in 2004. The main objectives of this department are to provide a conducive environment and to promote and assist the entrepreneurial development in the country. The effort of the Ministry is supported by many new policies and mechanisms including funding, entrepreneurial programs and activities, physical infrastructures and business advisory services. This paper endeavors to trace the progress of the entrepreneurial program and assess its achievements towards inculcating the spirit and culture of enterprise among the Malaysians. It also attempt to see whether the contribution increases the pace of development in the country and made an impact on income inequalities and poverty among the target groups. |
| Keywords: | Keyword: Growth; human resource development; risk taking; entrepreneurship; role of the state; Malaysia |
| JEL: | O1 H0 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:8980&r=hrm |
| By: | Berna Demiralp (Old Dominion University, Department of Economics); Johanna Francis (Fordham University, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Although the debate about the effect of wealth on entrepreneurship is now almost two decades old, there is little consensus among researchers about the significance of wealth as a determinant for self-employment. We re-visit the relationship between wealth and entrepreneurship using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Like Hurst and Lusardi (2004), our results suggest the relationship between wealth and the probability of entering entrepreneurship is nonlinear. However, unlike Hurst and Lusardi, we find the probability of entrepreneurship increases at an increasing rate with wealth, starting at lower quantiles of the wealth distribution. We also observe that the aggregate relationship masks differences among entrepreneurs with respect to their industry. While high capital requirement industries and professional services display a convex relationship between wealth and the probability of self-employment, low capital requirement industries display a concave relationship. Since we find a positive relationship between wealth and the probability of entering entrepreneurship at lower quantiles of the wealth distribution, it is critical to check whether this relationship is caused by wealth endogeneity. In order to account for the possible endogeneity of wealth we instrument for wealth using changes in housing equity and the value of unexpected inheritances. The results of instrumental variable estimation reveal that there is no significant relationship between wealth and entering entrepreneurship for the full sample as well as for each of the three industries. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneur, wealth, industry, liquidity constraints |
| JEL: | E21 G11 J24 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frd:wpaper:dp2008-09&r=hrm |
| By: | Jeroen de Jong; Sander Wennekers |
| Abstract: | Intrapreneurship refers to employee initiatives in organizations to undertake something new, without being asked to do so. As the detailed behavioural content of intrapreneurship is still uncharted, this paper surveys three relevant strands of literature. These are early-stage entrepreneurial activity (business founding) and two literatures on employee behaviour inside existing organizations, i.e. proactiveness and innovative work behaviour. By combining insights from these domains with those from the emerging intrapreneurship literature, we derive a detailed list of relevant activities and behavioural aspects of intrapreneurship. Major activities related to intrapreneurship include opportunity perception, idea generation, designing a new product or another recombination of resources, internal coalition building, persuading the management, resource acquisition, planning and organizing. Key behavioural aspects of intrapreneurship are personal initiative, active information search, out of the box thinking, voicing, championing, taking charge, finding a way, and some degree of risk taking. The paper next discusses the similarities and differences between intrapreneurship and independent entrepreneurship. Most but not all of the activities and behavioural aspects of the latter are also typical of the former phenomenon. Key differential elements of independent entrepreneurship are the investment of personal financial means and the related financial risk taking, a higher degree of autonomy, and legal and fiscal aspects of establishing a new independent business. Based on this discussion an integral conceptual model of intrapreneurial behaviour is presented. The paper closes with conclusions. |
| Date: | 2008–06–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eim:papers:h200802&r=hrm |
| By: | Hernando Zuleta; Julián David Parada; Jacobo Campo |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo aporta dos elementos básicos para el análisis del crecimiento económico en Colombia: En primer lugar, para el cálculo de la participación de los factores en el producto, se separa el ingreso de capital físico del ingreso de capital natural y el ingreso del trabajo básico del ingreso de capital humano. Con esta metodología se comprueba que la participación de los factores reproducibles tiene una tendencia creciente como lo sugieren los modelos de innovaciones sesgadas. En segundo lugar, utilizando los nuevos cálculos de participación de los factores, se desarrolla un ejercicio de contabilidad de crecimiento, este procedimiento permite identificar con mayor precisión el comportamiento de la productividad total de los factores. *** We provide two basic elements for the analysis of the economic growth in Colombia: In order to get the factor shares, we separate produced physical capital income from natural capital income and raw labor income from the human capital income. We find that the share of reproducible factors has an increasing trend (as suggested by biased innovations models). Second, using the new calculations, we perform an exercise of growth accounting. This procedure allows us to identify with major precision the behavior of total factor productivity. |
| Date: | 2008–06–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:004713&r=hrm |