Essays in human capital accumulation and labor supply

Essays in human capital accumulation and labor supply PDF Author: Edward John Driffill
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Essays in human capital accumulation and labor supply

Essays in human capital accumulation and labor supply PDF Author: Edward John Driffill
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description


Three Essays in Life-cycle Labor Supply and Human Capital Formation

Three Essays in Life-cycle Labor Supply and Human Capital Formation PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This dissertation consists of three independent essays on earnings dynamics, educational production function, and retirement. Each chapter explains labor supply and human capital formation from a life-cycle perspective. In the first chapter, I investigate how two different kinds of uncertainty jointly affect young workers' decisions. This paper introduces the possibility of multidimensional learning about worker ability and job match quality into a model of work decisions. This mechanism has a unique prediction, negative sorting into job mobility that fades away over time, which is verified in the NLSY79 data if the AFQT score carries over some information unused by workers and employers. I estimate the structural model, which also has flexible skill accumulation, by indirect inference. From simulation results on earnings dynamics, I find that the contribution of job shopping to average earnings growth is higher than previous estimates; also, individual heterogeneity in earnings growth is mostly explained by the process of resolving uncertainties. In the second chapter, which is joint work with Keunkwan Ryu, we estimate the effects of high school class size on college entrance exam scores, using Korean administrative data. For the identification, we exploit quasi-experimental variation in class size arising from distinct institutional settings in Korea: especially, students are separately educated by major from grade 11 with different class sizes between majors. By using multi-level differencing and instrumental variable techniques, we find the effects of high school class size reduction on the test scores are positive but small. In the third chapter, I examine the effects of life expectancy on retirement and related decisions. I construct a structural model which has a realistic description of complicated dynamic incentives facing the elderly, including Social Security. Furthermore, individual heterogeneity in survival beliefs are flexibly modeled, directly using subjective survival probabilities in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data. The estimated model suggests that many people in the data believed their wealth was over-annuitized; they would have chosen to work and save less if their average life expectancy had increased. This result partially explains the early retirement puzzle in the last century.

Three Essays on Human Capital and Labor Supply

Three Essays on Human Capital and Labor Supply PDF Author: Cody Taylor Orr
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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This dissertation contains three chapters that study individuals' willingness to work, factors that influence their human capital development, and the interaction between their human capital investment decisions and labor supply.Chapter one examines how college students choose their credit hour enrollment, labor supply, and borrowing, paying particular attention to the role of wages, financial resources and beliefs. To formalize these relationships, I construct a dynamic structural model where students choose their credit hours, work hours, and borrowing to maximize lifetime utility. I collect data from two sources to estimate the model: (1) a unique survey of Michigan State undergraduates eliciting their employment history, family financial support, beliefs about the returns to studying and beliefs about earning a high GPA, and (2) administrative data from the University. Estimates of the model suggest that students' credit hour decision is inelastic with respect to changes in financial aid, tuition, beliefs, or wages. Students' labor supply and borrowing decisions are responsive to changes in wages, and for a subset of students, changes in beliefs. I also conduct two counterfactual simulations, increasing the minimum wage and making college tuition free, and evaluate how these policy changes affect student decisions and outcomes.The second chapter studies the relationship between the gender composition of a student's peers and two of their non-cognitive factors: sense of belonging and self-worth. Using data from Add Health and exploiting idiosyncratic variation in the share of female peers across grades within schools, I find positive but small effects of a higher share of female peers for male students. I do not find statistically significant effects for female students, but I can rule out large positive effects.The third chapter, jointly written with Todd Elder and Steven J. Haider, estimates how the wage elasticity of labor supply has changed for single and married men and women over the last two decades. The wage elasticity of labor supply is arguably one of the most fundamental parameters in economics, but despite the central role of this parameter, few studies have examined how it has evolved past the early 2000s. We find robust evidence that the labor supply elasticities for all four demographic groups have increased modestly. For women, this finding is a substantial departure from earlier evidence. We also contribute to the literature on the robustness of discrete choice labor supply models by estimating elasticities under a variety of assumptions and specifications. Our estimated trends are remarkably similar across specifications.

Essays on Returns to Human Capital Accumulation in Mexico

Essays on Returns to Human Capital Accumulation in Mexico PDF Author: Ernesto Rattia Lima
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Two Essays on Human Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth

Two Essays on Human Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth PDF Author: Alexandros T. Mourmouras
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Essays on Human Capital Accumulation and Development

Essays on Human Capital Accumulation and Development PDF Author: Hyunseok Kim (Ph.D.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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In this dissertation, I explore human capital accumulation and its implication for economic development. Chapter 1 and 2 focused on the mechanism behind the sustained economic growth of South Korea, which was a war-devastated, aid-recipient country two generations ago but now sells semiconductors and automobiles to the world. I ask how the country shifted its technology to capital-intensive production technique. These chapters consider educational policy change that led to an increase in college graduate. Chapter 3 studies the mechanism behind the divergence in employment between temporary and permanent workers in South Korea. The chapter considers the labor policy change that protects temporary employment. For each chapter, I construct a plant-level panel dataset from a series of censuses and connect it with an industry-level input-output table to consider a spillover effect. Chapter 1 studies how an increase in college graduates has affected the technology shift in South Korea. The analysis is based on the concept of complementarity in technology adoption - i.e., the idea that more adopters increase a marginal adopter's gain. I consider skilled labor as an adoption good needed for technology adoption. If complementarity exists in technology adoption, there could be multiple equilibria, possibly leading to undesirable results from coordination failure. I develop a theoretical framework which predicts that an increase in the adoption good of skilled labor could overcome coordination failure and promote a technology shift. Based on plant-level panel data from 1982-1996, I find that accumulation of more outside human capital, or more adopters, (i) benefits marginal adopting firm's profit and investment, and (ii) promotes the firm's technology shift by increasing the productivity of capital while decreasing that of unskilled workers. This paper contributes to the literature on aggregate growth theory by verifying that outside human capital accumulation and its spillover effect contribute to economic growth. Chapter 2 builds on Chapter 1, where human capital is considered an adoption good, by studying the specific role of human capital. Specifically, I explore whether research and development (R&D) is the channel through which human capital accumulation leads to a technology shift. The analysis is based on previous literature indicating that R&D generates new knowledge and the absorption of outside knowledge. The latter role of R&D, absorptive capacity, matches the concept of complementarity in chapter 1. Based on plant-level panel data, I find that (i) human capital accumulation due to the educational policy change promotes R&D in the manufacturing industries; (ii) the effect of R&D spillovers is increasing in a firm's own R&D, a finding which validates the concepts of absorptive capacity and complementarity; and (iii) more outside R&D promotes a firm's technology shift toward capital-intensity. This paper contributes to the literature on endogenous growth, which so far has focused on R&D spillover's effects on total factor productivity rather than on technology shift, by connecting absorptive capacity with complementarity in technology adoption. Chapter 3 investigates another dimension of human capital: permanent and temporary workers. The labor market in South Korea has witnessed a divergence in employment between permanent and temporary workers. The proportion of permanent workers, which had been stable between 50 and 60 percent for two decades in the 1990s and 2000s, has increased recently to above 70 percent. I point out that legislation requiring firms that hire a worker on a temporary basis for more than two years to offer them permanent status serves as a trigger for the divergence. This legislation limits the advantages (to firms) of flexibility in hiring and capacity for screening new workers. Hence, in a competitive labor market firms expect that other firms are more likely to hire permanent rather than temporary workers. If complementarity exists in permanent employment, the legislation serves as a Big Push to make the divergence happen. Based on plant-level panel data covering 2011-2019, I find that (i) flexibility and screening effect of temporary workers are overwhelmed by human capital effect, and (ii) complementarity in permanent employment holds after the temporary employment protection legislation. This paper deepens the understanding of the recent labor market phenomena in South Korea by adopting the concept of complementarity and a Big Push.

Three Essays in Labor Economics

Three Essays in Labor Economics PDF Author: Shintaro Yamaguchi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Essays on Workers' Human Capital Accumulation and Wage Experience Profiles

Essays on Workers' Human Capital Accumulation and Wage Experience Profiles PDF Author: Alejandro Nakab
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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This dissertation consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 jointly offer an explanation for why workers in richer countries have faster rates of wage growth over their lifetimes than workers in poorer countries. We propose that workers in richer economies receive more firm-provided training. In Chapter 1, we document two main facts: the share of workers who receive firm-provided training increases with development, and that this is a key determinant of worker human capital investments. In Chapter 2 we build a general equilibrium search model with firm-training investments and frictional labor markets. Our model suggests firm-training accounts for a large share of the cross-country wage growth differences. We find that self-employment is a key factor explaining the lack of training in the poorest economies, whereas labor market frictions are key to explaining training differences within firms as countries develop. Finally, our model predicts considerable inefficiencies in human capital investments and sizeable aggregate gains from training subsidies to firms, which may be particularly desirable in poor countries where economic environments disincentivize training. Chapter 3 studies how exporting shapes experience-wage profiles. Using detailed Brazilian employer-employee and customs data, we document that workers' experience-wage profiles are steeper in exporters than in non-exporters. Aside from self-selection of firms with higher returns to experience into exporting, we show that workers' experience-wage profiles are steeper when firms export to industrialized destinations. We propose that this result is likely driven by faster human capital accumulation of workers in firms that export to advanced economies. To support our preferred hypothesis, we use the World Bank Enterprise Surveys and document that exporters are more likely to train workers than non-exporters, especially when they adopt foreign technology.

Essays on Human Capital Accumulation and Inequality

Essays on Human Capital Accumulation and Inequality PDF Author: Claudia Trentini
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economic development
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Studies in Human Capital

Studies in Human Capital PDF Author: Jacob Mincer
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 9781782541554
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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'The books should. . . . be bought by every university library. The research reported here is important, the exposition is lucid, the sequencing of chapters is sensible and the retrospective aspect of the volumes provides a fascinating insight into the working methods of one of the great economists of our time.' - Geraint Johnes, International Journal of Manpower Studies in Human Capital, the first volume of Jacob Mincer's essays to be published in this series, assesses the impact of education and job training on wage growth. It offers an authoritative study of the effects of human capital investments on labor turnover and the impact of technological change on human capital formation.