The schooling response to a sustained increase in low-skill wages: evidence from Spain 1989–2009

AbstractThe response of human capital accumulation to changes in the anticipated returns to schooling determines the type of skills supplied to the labor market, the productivity of future cohorts, and the evolution of inequality. Unlike the USA, the UK or Germany, Spain has experienced between 1995 and 2008 a drop in the returns to medium and tertiary education and, with a lag, a drop in schooling attainment of recent cohorts, providing the setup to estimate the response of different forms of human capital acquisition to relative increases in low-skill wages. We measure the expected returns to schooling using skill-specific wages bargained in collective agreements at the province–industry level. We argue that those wages are easily observable by youths and relatively insensitive to shifts in the supply of workers. Our preferred estimates suggest that a 10% increase in the ratio of wages of unskilled workers to the wages of mid-skill workers increases the fraction of males completing at most compulsory schooling by between 2 and 6.5 percentage points. The response is driven by males from less educated parents and comes at the expense of students from the academic high school track—rather than the vocational training track.

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Human Capital Disparities and Earnings Inequality in The Portuguese Private Labour Market

Social Indicators Research ◽

10.1007/s11205-021-02745-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Derick R. C. Almeida ◽

João A. S. Andrade ◽

Adelaide Duarte ◽

Marta Simões

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Labour Market ◽

Tertiary Education ◽

Earnings Inequality ◽

Kuznets Curve ◽

Positive Trend ◽

Returns To Schooling ◽

Education Inequality ◽

Using Data

AbstractThis paper examines human capital inequality and how it relates to earnings inequality in Portugal using data from Quadros de Pessoal for the period 1986–2017. The objective is threefold: (i) show how the distribution of human capital has evolved over time; (ii) investigate the association between human capital inequality and earnings inequality; and (iii) analyse the role of returns to schooling, together with human capital inequality, in the explanation of earnings inequality. Our findings suggest that human capital inequality, computed based on the distribution of average years of schooling of employees working in the Portuguese private labour market, records a positive trend until 2007 and decreases from this year onwards, suggesting the existence of a Kuznets curve of education relating educational attainment levels and education inequality. Based on the decomposition of a Generalized Entropy index (Theil N) for earnings inequality, we observe that inequality in the distribution of human capital plays an important role in the explanation of earnings inequality, although this role has become less important over the last decade. Using Mincerian earnings regressions to estimate the returns to schooling together with the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of real hourly earnings we confirm that there are two important forces associated with the observed decrease in earnings inequality: a reduction in education inequality and compressed returns to schooling, mainly in tertiary education.

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Intergenerational Mobility and Unequal School Opportunity

The Economic Journal ◽

10.1093/ej/ueaa062 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Andreu Arenas ◽

Jean Hindriks

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Capital Accumulation ◽

Intergenerational Mobility ◽

Assortative Matching ◽

Human Capital Accumulation ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Intergenerational Income Mobility ◽

The Usa ◽

Income Dispersion ◽

The Impact

Abstract We analyse the impact of unequal school opportunity on intergenerational income mobility and human capital accumulation. Building upon the classical Becker–Tomes–Solon framework, we use a regime-switch model allowing for differences in income transmission across groups. We find that unequal school opportunity raises average human capital because of assortative matching. However, because income dispersion tends to be higher at the top, in most cases unequal school opportunity decreases intergenerational mobility. Calibrating the model to the USA, simulations suggest that school equalisation and desegregation policies have positive effects on mobility at relatively small efficiency costs.

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School Entry, Compulsory Schooling, and Human Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Michigan

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.2769197 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Steven W. Hemelt ◽

Rachel Rosen

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Capital Accumulation ◽

School Entry ◽

Human Capital Accumulation ◽

Compulsory Schooling

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Low Cost Tertiary Education: The Price to Pay for Knowledge-Business Hub-The Mauritius Transitional Education Case Study

Journal of Education and Vocational Research ◽

10.22610/jevr.v5i4.164 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 154-164

Author(s):

Rajendra Parsad GUNPUTH

Keyword(s):

Tertiary Education ◽

Low Cost ◽

Small Island ◽

Tertiary Institutions ◽

University Of Technology ◽

The Usa ◽

Transitional Education ◽

The Republic ◽

Local Students ◽

The Uk

Most United Kingdom (UK) universities are franchising fast with foreign universities affording low cost tertiary education. Most students and graduates in Mauritius have their degree and other awards from local, Indian or British universities. However, in the recent couple of years UK universities are franchising more and more with local institutions (University of Mauritius and University of Technology Mauritius) with large campuses on the small island of the Republic of Mauritius. Of both French (1715-1810) and British colonisation (1810-1968) until its independence in 1968 the young Republic of Mauritius (12 March 1992) is one of the leading countries in Africa where secondary education is free with a relative weaker fee to enter in tertiary institutions like the University of Mauritius. In a contextualised approach the study that shall follow explain the actual situation transition education in Mauritius where local students are less and less reluctant to go to the UK to have a degree. In return UK universities instead are mushrooming around the island attracting local students who cannot afford to pay high cost tertiary education in countries like the USA, France or the UK. Actually, UK universities are recruiting local academics to lecture on their programmes in Mauritius for local students who despite their high profile cannot afford to pay the fees in the USA or UK. UK universities are also sending their staff to lecture in Mauritius and local students have the same award they would receive in the UK. Indeed, the research reflects to what extent students are willing to remain in Mauritius to avoid obstacles and harassment they would probably face in the UK or the USA in terms of visas, accommodation, job facilities just to name a few. But there is still a cost to pay.

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Global trends in the reproduction of human capital in the tertiary education system

St Petersburg University Journal of Economic Studies ◽

10.21638/spbu05.2021.102 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 34-61

Author(s):

Gennady Alpatov ◽

◽

Elena Anokhina ◽

Keyword(s):

Pure Sciences ◽

Higher Education ◽

Human Capital ◽

Tertiary Education ◽

Weighted Average ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

Educational Process ◽

Average Score ◽

Global Trends ◽

The Usa

This article assesses global trends in higher education. Two tasks are central to this effort:1) research into higher as performing the macro-function of producing human capital;2) a comparison of the organization and financing of higher education in different countries.Our hypothesis is as follows. Along with the influence of the mental development of the population and the level of productive forces, we believe that the main difference in the effectiveness of higher education systems is a consequence of the regulatory influences of governments.Study of the contradictions accumulated in the course of continuous reform allows us to propose measures to improve systemic interaction. The article compares the organization of higher education in the USA, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia at various stages, from admission to universities, to employment of graduates, and the corresponding organization and funding of the educational process. Research results are these. Comparing the indicators of applicant selection suggests replacing the Unified State Exam in Russia with an indicator of the weighted average score of electronic diaries. The study of the learning process showed a tendency to replace pure sciences in curricula with applied sciences. Variants of increasing the share of education in pure sciences are proposed to extend the life of basic competencies of graduates in conditions of local backwardness and uncertainty in the development of regional labor markets. For organization and financing of higher education, the analysis suggests an incompatibility between the Bologna system as introduced in Russia, and the preserved course system of education, with its fixed structure of curricula and expulsion for academic failure.The article shows ways to eliminate this incompatibility, such as the transition to a subjectstatus system of education and re-teaching in the subject. This will eliminate the current situation of fining universities for each expelled student. Conclusions are provided about the need for an integrated approach to subsequent transformations based on the study of global trends in the development of higher education and the preservation of the advantages of the development of Russian higher education.

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Human Capital Accumulation and Resource Abundance

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2011-12-66-77 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 66-77

Author(s):

O. Vasilieva

Keyword(s):

Economic Growth ◽

Human Capital ◽

Capital Accumulation ◽

Relevant Literature ◽

Harmful Effect ◽

Human Capital Accumulation ◽

Resource Abundance ◽

Empirical Results ◽

Theoretical Predictions ◽

Crowd Out

Does resource abundance positively affect human capital accumulation? Or, alternatively, does it «crowd out» the human capital leading to the deterioration of economic growth? The paper gives an overview of the relevant literature and discusses both theoretical and empirical results obtained regarding the connection between human capital accumulation and resource abundance. It shows that despite some theoretical predictions about the harmful effect of resource abundance on human capital accumulation, unambiguous evidence of such impact that would be robust with respect to the change of resource abundance parameter has not been obtained yet.

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An early mainstream economist from Hungary: István Varga (1897–1962)

Acta Oeconomica ◽

10.1556/aoecon.53.2003.2.4 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 53 (2) ◽

pp. 195-213 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

K. Majoros

Keyword(s):

Austrian Economic ◽

National Income ◽

Anglo Saxon ◽

Turbulent Times ◽

The Usa ◽

New Ideas ◽

Modern Economic ◽

The Uk ◽

Economic Thinking ◽

Lasting Influence

The study introduces a Hungarian economic thinker, István Varga*, whose valuable activity has remained unexplored up to now. He became an economic thinker during the 1920s, in a country that had not long before become independent of Austria. The role played by Austria in the modern economic thinking of that time was a form of competition with the thought adhered to by the UK and the USA. Hungarian economists mainly interpreted and commented on German and Austrian theories, reasons for this being that, for example, the majority of Hungarian economists had studied at German and Austrian universities, while at Hungarian universities principally German and Austrian economic theories were taught. István Varga was familiar not only with contemporary German economics but with the new ideas of Anglo-Saxon economics as well — and he introduced these ideas into Hungarian economic thinking. He lived and worked in turbulent times, and historians have only been able to appreciate his activity in a limited manner. The work of this excellent economist has all but been forgotten, although he was of international stature. After a brief summary of Varga’s profile the study will demonstrate the lasting influence he has had in four areas — namely, business cycle research and national income estimations, the 1946 Hungarian stabilisation program, corporate profit, and consumption economics — and will go on to summarise his most important achievements.

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