Different Paths? Human Capital Prices, Wages, and Inequality in Canada and the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (S2) ◽  
pp. S689-S734
Author(s):  
Audra J. Bowlus ◽  
Chris Robinson ◽  
Haoming Liu
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajshree Agarwal ◽  
Martin Ganco ◽  
Joseph Raffiee

We examine how institutional factors may affect microlevel career decisions by individuals to create new firms by impacting their ability to exercise entrepreneurial preferences, their accumulation of human capital, and the opportunity costs associated with new venture formation. We focus on an important institutional factor—immigration-related work constraints—given that technologically intensive firms in the United States not only draw upon immigrants as knowledge workers but also because such firms are disproportionately founded by immigrants. We examine the implications of these constraints using the National Science Foundation’s Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System, which tracks the careers of science and engineering graduates from U.S. universities. Relative to natives, we theorize and show that immigration-related work constraints in the United States suppress entrepreneurship as an early career choice of immigrants by restricting labor market options to paid employment jobs in organizational contexts tightly matched with the immigrant’s educational training (job-education match). Work experience in paid employment job-education match is associated with the accumulation of specialized human capital and increased opportunity costs associated with new venture formation. Consistent with immigration-related work constraints inhibiting individuals with entrepreneurial preferences from engaging in entrepreneurship, we show that when the immigration-related work constraints are released, immigrants in job-education match are more likely than comparable natives to found incorporated employer firms. Incorporated employer firms can both leverage specialized human capital and provide the expected returns needed to justify the increased opportunity costs associated with entrepreneurial entry. We discuss our study’s contributions to theory and practice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 226-230
Author(s):  
Sarah Miller ◽  
Laura R. Wherry ◽  
Diana Greene Foster

We provide a brief overview of the Turnaway Study, the first study to collect longitudinal data on individual women who received versus were denied a wanted abortion in the United States. The study team collected data on nearly 1,000 women seeking an abortion from 30 facilities around the country and followed them for 5 years. We discuss some of the main findings from the study related to the health, labor, and human capital outcomes of the women who were denied abortions and gave birth. We conclude by describing future opportunities to learn from the study with new linkages to administrative data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (02) ◽  
pp. 80-92
Author(s):  
Leif-Eric EASLEY

Analogies to the Peloponnesian War have been misapplied in studies of US–China relations, especially regarding the so-called “Thucydides trap” of inevitable conflict between an established power and a rising power. This article addresses methodological problems with deriving policy lessons from political theory and ancient history. It then argues that Thucydides is more applicable to overcoming a pattern of leadership mistakes reminiscent of Athens’ populist politics, erosion of international agreements and mismanagement of alliances. To meet the China challenge, the United States must renew its national strength with good governance, productive interdependence, and sustained investment in human capital.


Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith

This chapter examines various developments in economics that are part of the present and will contend against the neoclassical tradition for recognition in the future. Industrial countries, including the United States, have already become deeply concerned with the economic ideas and more especially their practice in Japan. The chapter considers some of the lessons to come and that are coming from Japan, such as the industry–government cooperation and investment in human capital, It also discusses a number of ways to escape market discipline and deal with competition, including a return to tariff protection, and how the distinction between microeconomics and macroeconomics will blur and disappear due to factors such as the dynamic of prices and wages as a determinant of both inflation and unemployment. Finally, it comments on the future of domestic monetary and fiscal policy in relation to a nation's international position.


Author(s):  
Monty McNair ◽  
Caroline Howard ◽  
Paul Watkins ◽  
Indira Guzman

Survival in the 21st century marketplace often depends on the creativity of organizational employees (Beckett, 1992; Hermann, 1993; Johnson, 1992; Kanter, 1982). Many historians attribute the emergence of the United States (US) as a twentieth century superpower to the creativity of its population (Florida, 2005; Ehrlich, 2007). They warn that the United States may be losing its dominance due to declines in the ability to attract and sustain human capital including the creative talent critical for innovation (Florida, 2004; Florida, 2005; Ehrlich, 2007). In his Harvard Business Review article, America’s Looming Creativity Crisis, Richard Florida of Carnegie Mellon describes the importance of creativity to the wealth of a society: “Today, the terms of competition revolve around a central axis: a nation’s ability to mobilize, attract and retain human creative talent.“ In other words, nations and their citizens depend on the creativity of their residents to ensure their economic prosperity.


2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Waldorf

Among the millions of newcomers entering the United States every decade, those with extensive human capital are of particular importance for local economies. This study uses data from the American Community Surveys, 2004 to 2007 and compares the locational patterns of highly educated individuals coming from abroad with that of highly educated individuals migrating internally. The study finds that the locational choices of highly educated newcomers from abroad are similar to those of highly educated domestic migrants but that there are some important differences. Gateway states are substantially more successful in attracting human capital from abroad than domestic human capital; foreign human capital is more strongly attracted to existing human capital agglomerations than domestic human capital; and a manufacturing-based industry is a deterrent for the attraction of both foreign and domestic highly educated in-migrants, but the deterrent effect is stronger for domestic human capital than for human capital from abroad.


2013 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A Clemens

Why do workers earn so much more in the United States than in India? This study compares the earnings of workers in the two countries in a unique setting. The product is perfectly tradable (software), technology differences are nil (they are members of the same work team), and the workers are identical in expectation (those who enter the United States are chosen by natural randomization). The results suggest that output tradability, technology, and human capital together explain much less than half of the earnings gap. Location itself may have large effects on individual workers' wages and productivity, for reasons poorly understood.


2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1850033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Borraz

This paper analyzes the impact of remittances on child human capital in Mexico. During the 90’s and in particular after the “tequila crisis” Mexican workers increased the remittances that were sent to their homes from the United States. I will analyze the effect of such increasing source of income on child human capital decisions. Contrary to Hanson and Woodruff (2003) the results obtained from Census data indicate a positive and small effect of remittances on schooling only for children living in cities with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants and with mothers with a very low level of education. However its magnitude is not substantial.


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