Low Human Capital Research Articles

A Blessing or a Curse? The Long-Term Effect of Resource Booms on Human Capital and Living Conditions

Is natural resource abundance a blessing or a curse for a country? An important concern is the possibility that resource booms reduce human capital accumulation. These booms favor low-skill jobs, which increases the opportunity cost of education making it optimal for some cohorts to interrupt their education. If these individuals do not resume their education, they may lose pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits of education in their lifetime. For a country, lower human capital may constrain its long-term growth. I use proprietary individual-level data to study the long-term effects of exposure to the 1970s oil boom on human capital accumulation in the context of a developing country. I exploit variation in the timing of the shock and geographic differences in the cost of college attendance and find that exposure to the boom decreased college completion and increased low-skill occupation among affected individuals. I show evidence consistent with the hypothesis that individuals shift into highly remunerative low skilled employment and away from college because the boom decreased the returns of a college education. In line with this, despite the reduction in educational attainment, I find no effects on wealth accumulation.

Challenges and opportunities for the sustainable development of the wine tourism sector in Chile

ABSTRACTEnotourism has emerged as a promising, sustainable type of tourism that can provide many benefits for local, regional, and national economies. This study critically describes the current situation of the newly-introduced enotourism sector in Chile, analyses the challenges it faces, and offers possible solutions to overcome such challenges. Chile is the eighth wine-producing country in the world, and the first among New World wine regions. Due to the existence of a variety of good-quality wines and unique landscapes, Chile has begun recently to develop its enotourism industry by offering a series of attractive wine routes and wine festivals. Despite recent progress, this nascent industry faces various bottlenecks to its sustainable development, including a still incomplete infrastructure, low human capital, low coordination and governance between relevant public and private companies involved, sustainability issues, inadequate marketing and enotourism-promoting strategies, and lack of synergies with other tourism sectors. Addressing these bottlenecks is particularly important for the Chilean economy, both because at present it loses significant opportunities to generate more income from enotourism, but also because enotourism can contribute to the diversification of the economy, which currently depends heavily on extractive sectors. The suggestions proposed here can also be particularly useful for New World wine-producing countries that may face similar challenges to Chile.

Political promotion and labor investment efficiency

This study investigates the effect of political promotion incentives on the labor investment efficiency of firms by focusing on human capital misallocation. We show that 1) promotion incentives of local politicians significantly increase firm-level employment growth and decrease labor investment efficiency. 2) Causality is established using the number of death toll in local mining accidents to isolate exogenous shocks on the promotion incentives of local politicians, and placebo tests further confirm the causality. 3) For under-hiring firms, promotion incentives only increase the employment of low human capital, thus distorting human capital structure and decreasing labor investment efficiency. 4) Our findings are robust to alternative specifications. Overall, we highlight the political economy channel of human capital misallocation from the perspective of career concerns of local politicians.

Research on the Chinese Industrialized Construction Migrant Workers from the Perspective of Complex Adaptive System: Combining the Application of SWARM Computer Simulation Technology

In China, the gradual disappearance of the demographic dividend has forced the traditional construction industry to transform into the industrialization and standardization of modernization. However, 75% of the workers in the construction industry are migrant workers, and the low human capital is the bottleneck in the transformation of the construction industry. Only by transforming the traditional migrant workers into industrial workers, can the construction industry further optimize the labor structure, accelerate the deepening of reform and promote industrial upgrading. The paper analyzes the complexity and emergent properties of the evolution problem that the migrant workers become industrial workers in construction industry, and interprets seven indicators of the compatibility between migrant workers to be industrial workers and CAS theory in construction industry. On this basis, CAS theory is used to analyze the construction of industrial workers in the construction of industrial workers, and put forward suggestions based on the application of agent based computer simulation technology.

Selective Mortality and the Long-Term Effects of Early-Life Exposure to Natural Disasters

We analyze the effects of early-life shocks with varying degrees of severity on mortality and human capital outcomes in the Philippines. We exploit variations in typhoon exposure and sharp increases in short-term disaster relief efforts in the 1960s. Severe typhoons are associated with increased mortality and adverse long-term outcomes. Before the increase in disaster relief efforts, mortality from in utero exposure to severe typhoons was 10 percent; survivors exhibited similar levels of human capital as the unaffected. After the increase in disaster relief, the mortality effects were mitigated; however, survivors exhibited lower human capital in the long term.

Impact of M&A on Employee Turnover

With the worldwide growth of mergers and acquisitions (M&As), a number of studies in recent years have called their relative success into question. One reason for the poor performance of a number of deals may be negative employee reactions, such as employee turnover. Despite the widespread perception that M&As often lead to employee turnover, there is surprisingly weak empirical support provided in the literature. In particular, we know notably little regarding the characteristics of those who are departing. In this study, I address this gap by using a unique dataset resulting from the merger of Bureau Van Dijk’s Zephyr M&As database and Danish register data. Additionally, I explore the heterogeneous effect of different types of M&As across employee groups. I find that M&As generally increase the probability of employee turnover, particularly for employees with relatively low human capital. Nevertheless, the effect varies significantly for different types of M&A.

Patterns of Multiple Risk Exposures for Low Receptive Vocabulary Growth 4-8 Years in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

Risk exposures and predictions of child development outcomes typically estimate the independent effects of individual exposures. As a rule though, children are not exposed piecemeal to individual or single risks but, rather, they are exposed to clusters of risk. Many of these clusters of risks are better thought of as comprising a developmental “circumstance” with a substantial duration, over which period, additional risk exposures also accumulate. In this paper we examined the distribution of 16 single risk exposures for low language ability using latent class analysis across a sample of approximately 4000 children from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. The best fitting model identified six distinct classes. 46% of children were in a Developmentally Enabled group, 20% were in a group typified as Working Poor families, 10% of children were in group typified as Overwhelmed group, 9% of children were in a group defined by Child Developmental Delay, 8% of children were in a group defined by Low Human Capital, and 7% of children were in a group defined by Resource Poor non-English Speaking background families. These groups had quantitatively and qualitatively distinct patterns of risk factors and showed different onward trajectories of receptive vocabulary. Our results demonstrate a range of multiple risk profiles in a population-representative sample of Australian children and highlight the mix of risk factors faced by children. Children with distinct patterns of risk factors have different onward trajectories of receptive vocabulary development.

Screening Spinouts? How Noncompete Enforceability Affects the Creation, Growth, and Survival of New Firms

This paper examines how the enforceability of noncompete covenants affects the creation, growth, and survival of spinouts and other new entrants. The impact of noncompete enforceability on new firms is ambiguous, since noncompetes reduce knowledge leakage but impose hiring costs. However, we posit that enforceability screens formation of within-industry spinouts (WSOs) relative to non-WSOs by dissuading founders with lower human capital. Using data on 5.5 million new firms, we find greater enforceability is associated with fewer WSOs, but relative to non-WSOs, WSOs that are created tend to start and stay larger, are founded by higher-earners, and are more likely to survive their initial years. In contrast, we find no impact on non-WSO entry and a negative effect on size and short-term survival. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2614 . This paper was accepted by David Hsu, entrepreneurship and innovation.

The Great Recession and Its Aftermath: What Role for Structural Changes?

The years since the 2009 end of the Great Recession have been disastrous for many workers, particularly those with low human capital or other disadvantages. One explanation attributes this to deficient aggregate labor demand, to which marginal workers are more sensitive. A second attributes it to structural changes. Cyclical explanations imply that if aggregate labor demand is increased then many of the post-2009 patterns will revert to their pre-recession trends. Structural explanations suggest recent experience is the “new normal.” This paper reviews data since 2007 for evidence. I examine wage trends to measure the relative importance of supply and demand. I find little wage pressure before 2015, pointing to demand as the binding constraint. The most recent data show some signs of tightness, but still substantial slack.

Penetration of MFIs among Indian states: an understanding through macro variables

Purpose The Indian microfinance industry witnessed one of the fastest growths in the recent times. However, the striking feature of this growth is that the Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are concentrated only in some specific regions of the country. There is a huge geographical skew in the distribution of the MFIs. In this paper, an attempt has been made to explain these geographical skew by using the macro variables of the states. The objective of the study is to identify the causes for this regional disparity in the growth of MFIs. Design/methodology/approach We try to explain the level of penetration of microfinance in the states by using regression models. Findings Our analysis suggests that state-level macro factors are significant in explaining the geographical skew. MFIs in India have concentrated in states which are richer, have good rural infrastructure, but lack in adequate banking facility, and have low human capital. Originality/value The study provides an insight which would help in framing the necessary regulations to ensure that MFIs operate in all regions of the country.

Female Migration and Native Marital Stability: Insights from Italy

Previous research has noted that divorce rates tend to be higher when there is a surplus of marriageable women in the marriage market. This paper argues that the size and the composition of the female migrant population can affect the marital stability of natives. We tested such hypothesis taking Italy as a case-study because it exemplifies a male-breadwinner society and because it is a relatively new immigration country. We estimated discrete-time event history models predicting marital disruption on data from the nationally representative 2009 Family and Social Subjects survey. Our results illustrated that the increasing presence of first mover migrant women (coming from Central-South America and Eastern Europe) was associated with higher separation risks among natives, especially for couples with lower human capital. By advancing the relevance of foreigners as a potential driver of natives’ family life courses, our findings add to our understanding of partnership dynamics in recent immigration countries.

Reaching the Poor: Cash Transfer Program Targeting in Cameroon

Identifying and selecting poor households with efficient targeting methods is essential for effective poverty alleviation programs. This paper assesses the ex-post performance of two popular targeting mechanisms, Proxy Means Testing (PMT) and Community-Based Targeting (CBT), in a pilot cash transfer program in Cameroon. Several indicators and metrics to measure each method’s performance in terms of inclusion of poor households and exclusion of non-poor households are employed. Results consistently show that CBT performs poorly in terms of selecting households with low per capita consumption when compared to PMT. CBT appears to select households with low physical and human capital, regardless of actual consumption level. However, CBT also shows more variability in the selection decision than PMT even when alternative poverty definitions are used as robustness tests. The PMT method used in the pilot slightly outperforms other targeting methods (hybrid, alternative PMT, and universal targeting with equal budget), but errors remain high when selecting 35% of the population for program participation. The results suggest caution is needed in employing CBT methods to select households with low per capita consumption in an environment where poverty levels are high and administrative capacities are limited. CBT performance may be improved through more uniform and consistent guidance on program selection criteria and process, including explicit criteria that enable CBT monitoring, as well as a better integration between PMT and CBT.

Public Expenditure, Demography and Growth: Theory and Evidence from India

Many countries in the developed world are ageing in terms of their distribution of population. Conversely, a number of countries in the south have younger population. India for example, has 60% of its population in the age group of 15-59, with the mean age close to 27 years as of present times. The lower share of population in the higher and lower age brackets make the dependency ratio lower than that of the ageing countries. The economic growth such a large share of working age population can usher in lies at the core of the demographic dividends. However, low human capital, poor health and inadequate physical infrastructure seems to create significant hurdles in the potential growth path such countries can achieve. We investigate through an endogenous growth model applied to the Indian macroeconomic data, as to whether public expenditures in education, health and physical infrastructure are conducive to rapid economic growth commensurate with the projected demographic dividends for India. We deploy a Structural Vector Autoregressive Model on data for shares of public expenditure on education and health as the main pillars of growth of human capital in the country, on the per capita GDP growth rate, the working age population, etc. Importantly, we find that a rise in expenditure on health imparts a positive impact on the working age population through greater participation. However, higher allocations for education and training draws workers away from the labor market in a country with large share of unskilled workers and employment opportunities in the large informal sector.

Identifying the potential of governance regimes to aggravate or mitigate local water conflicts in regions threatened by climate change

ABSTRACTThere is a need for specific knowledge of what people can do to mitigate harmful water conflicts. This need is evident in the rural dry tropics of Central America where people face climate change impacts, inefficient water management, and social tension. To address this need, we investigated why some local water conflicts escalated to violence and why other potential conflicts were avoided in Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica. We used interviews, focus groups, and a stakeholder workshop to analyse five cases. We found that violent actions only occurred when rural groups opposed government agencies in settings without mediating leadership. With one exception in a circumstance aggravated over many years, water users did not take violent action against competing water users. Distrust, which has been formed by legacies of ineffective rural stakeholder engagement, diminished the credibility of water-related information used in decision processes and thus prolonged conflicts. Active community-based groups respected by both rural constituencies and government agencies helped some people avoid difficult conflicts. Self-organised groups in other areas struggled to address disputes in settings with contested property rights, high socio-economic inequality, and low human capital. Using insights from Guanacaste, we outline practical conflict mitigation strategies fitted to a range of local water governance contexts found in rural Central America. Results suggest the need for incorporating certain types of peace-building processes in water management and development. The study provides a foundation for policy-makers, water managers, and other stakeholders to more effectively manage water disputes and avoid harmful conflicts in challenging regions.

Internal Labor Markets, Firm-Specific Human Capital, and Heterogeneity Antecedents of Employee Idiosyncratic Deal Requests

A field study of 615 managers in 11 Korean manufacturing firms extends theory regarding labor contracting to the study of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals). Despite i-deals’ potential to benefit both employees and employers, economic theory asserts that employers attempt to reduce individual contracting by use of internal labor markets (ILMs). This study identifies limits to that assertion by identifying conditions under which i-deals are sought, despite employee participation in ILMs. Furthermore, we develop and test theory reconciling the roles of ILMs and firm-specific human capital in employee requests for i-deals. Employee reports of ILM practices are negatively related to i-deal requests, whereas firm-specific human capital is positively related to these requests. In addition, we find an interaction between the two such that the suppressive effects of ILM reports on i-deal requests hold largely for workers with low firm-specific human capital. Individuals with high firm-specific human capital tend to seek i-deals despite reported ILM practices. I-deal requests also increase with group-level heterogeneity in firm-specific human capital. In all, our findings suggest that ILMs function as economic theory asserts for workers with limited firm-specific human capital, but they are less able to reduce i-deal requests among workers with higher firm-specific human capital.

Association between socioeconomic and biological factors and infant weight gain: Brazilian Demographic and Health Survey – PNDS‐2006/07

ObjectiveTo examine the associations between socioeconomic and biological factors and infant weight gain. MethodsAll infants (0‐23 months of age) with available birth and postnatal weight data (n = 1763) were selected from the last nationally representative survey with complex probability sampling conducted in Brazil (2006/07). The outcome variable was conditional weight gain (CWG), which represents how much an individual has deviated from his/her expected weight gain, given the birth weight. Associations were estimated using simple and hierarchical multiple linear regression, considering the survey sampling design, and presented in standard deviations of CWG with their respective 95% of confidence intervals. Hierarchical models were designed considering the Unicef Conceptual Framework for Malnutrition (basic, underlying and immediate causes). ResultsThe poorest Brazilian regions (–0.14 [–0.25; –0.04]) and rural areas (–0.14 [–0.26; –0.02]) were inversely associated with CWG in the basic causes model. However, this association disappeared after adjusting for maternal and household characteristics. In the final hierarchical model, lower economic status (–0.09 [–0.15; –0.03]), human capital outcomes (maternal education < 4th grade (–0.14 [–0.29; 0.01]), higher maternal height (0.02 [0.01; 0.03])), and fever in the past 2 weeks (–0.13 [–0.26; –0.01]) were associated with postnatal weight gain. ConclusionThe results showed that poverty and lower human capital are still key factors associated with poor postnatal weight gain. The approach used in these analyses was sensitive to characterize inequalities among different socioeconomic contexts and to identify factors associated with CWG in different levels of determination.

How to Get a Longer Job? Roles of Human and Social Capital in the Japanese Labor Market

AbstractThis article investigates the roles of human and social capital played in the Japanese labor market. Our research question is whether they interact to accelerate or decelerate each other to provide first jobs of a long duration. Based on the literature, we focus on the bonding functions of friends and relatives. Using the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility Survey Data, we measure human capital by educational attainment (college education) and social capital by job search methods (using friends or relatives). The dependent variable is the hazard rate of turnover from the first job. We find that social capital especially benefits those with low human capital (high school graduates). When friends or relatives introduce workers to jobs, high school graduates tended to stay longer in their first jobs and had a lower turnover than college graduates did. This means that social capital decelerated effects of human capital. Therefore, in the Japanese labor market, social capital plays a complementary role in mitigating educational disadvantage.

Association between socioeconomic and biological factors and infant weight gain: Brazilian Demographic and Health Survey – PNDS-2006/07

ObjectiveTo examine the associations between socioeconomic and biological factors and infant weight gain. MethodsAll infants (0-23 months of age) with available birth and postnatal weight data (n = 1763) were selected from the last nationally representative survey with complex probability sampling conducted in Brazil (2006/07). The outcome variable was conditional weight gain (CWG), which represents how much an individual has deviated from his/her expected weight gain, given the birth weight. Associations were estimated using simple and hierarchical multiple linear regression, considering the survey sampling design, and presented in standard deviations of CWG with their respective 95% of confidence intervals. Hierarchical models were designed considering the UNICEF Conceptual Framework for Malnutrition (basic, underlying and immediate causes). ResultsThe poorest Brazilian regions (-0.14 [-0.25; -0.04]) and rural areas (-0.14 [-0.26;-0.02]) were inversely associated with CWG in the basic causes model. However, this association disappeared after adjusting for maternal and household characteristics. In the final hierarchical model, lower economic status (-0.09 [-0.15; -0.03]), human capital outcomes (maternal education < 4th grade (-0.14[-0.29; 0.01]), higher maternal height (0.02[0.01; 0.03])), and fever in the past 2 weeks (-0.13[-0.26; -0.01]) were associated with postnatal weight gain. ConclusionThe results showed that poverty and lower human capital are still key factors associated with poor postnatal weight gain. The approach used in these analyses was sensitive to characterize inequalities among different socioeconomic contexts and to identify factors associated with CWG in different levels of determination.

Female Migration and Native Marital Stability: Insights from Italy

In this paper, we argue that the size and the composition of the female migrant population in a given area can affect the marital stability of natives. We take Italy as a case-study and we offer discrete-time event history models predicting marital disruption on data from the nationally – representative 2009 Family and Social Subjects survey. We found that the increasing presence of first mover migrant women (coming from Latin America and Eastern Europe) is associated with higher separation risks among natives, especially for couples with lower human capital. Our findings add to our understanding of family formation and dissolution dynamics in recent immigration countries.

Samorządy i europeizacja Polski lokalnej

Local self‑governments and Europeanization of local Poland: sociological, pragmatic and axiological aspects&#x0D; The article discusses the sources of positive attitudes toward the European integration in local communities and among local elites. The economic reasons (European funds) are important, but the socio‑cultural aspects of the support is very significant. The Polish local communities have many reasons to be afraid of the European integration, because of their backwardness, lack of knowledge, low human capital, and introductory negative influence of the europeization on agriculture and local industry. In spite of all of these, local communities and local elites have been supporting the integration since its beginning. The citizens treated this as common cultural advance. Under the new conditions, the local communities experienced revitalization of the local identity. For the local elites the Europeanization means modernization of local governments and their adaptation to new standards of governance. In effect there is broad support for emerging multilevel government in the European Union, perceived as a subsidiary relation within the EU.