Child Labour Use and Economic Growth: An Econometric Analysis

We present a simple dynamic theory of child labour, human capital formation, and economic growth that is consistent with some of the main features of child labour and economic development. The model supports a number of testable hypotheses, which we investigate econometrically in a systems approach. Using panel data from 64 countries in the period 1960–1980, the econometric results match the theory well. The incidence of child labour is negatively related to parental human capital and education quality, but is positively correlated with education cost. Further, countries with higher amounts of child labour tend to have lower stocks of human capital in the future. There is also a convergence phenomenon between the level and growth of human capital. The lower the current stock of human capital, the higher is current child‐labour use and the faster is the growth rate of human capital.     

教育发展中人力资本积累的现状及思考

人力资本是国民素质的综合体现,人力资本积累与教育发展密切相关。教育发展,促进人力资源开发,增加人力资本存量,从而促进经济发展,经济的发展又为教育发展提供财力、物力等方面的支持,因此,教育发展与人力资本积累是一种相互促进的关系。本文通过对教育发展中人力资本积累现状及原因的分析,从加大基础教育投入;转变思想和加强对教育行政主体的监督方面提出了教育发展中人力资本积累的有效途径。     

COVID-19 and the Growth Potential

Intereconomics - The lasting economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic will become apparent in the development of the macroeconomic factors of production — labour, capital, human capital as...     

The contribution of human capital to a holistic response to climate change: learning from and for the Mekong Delta,Vietnam

Abstract

The Mekong Delta has been identified by the International Panel on Climate Change as one of the three most vulnerable areas in the world as sea levels rise due to climate change. The Vietnam Government has implemented a range of policies to assist migration in order to address these environmental problems. While much research has focused on the environmental causes of, and responses to, climate change there has been less research on the impact of environmentally motivated responses to climate change on labour force and human capital factors. This paper examines the experience of the Vietnam Government in encouraging internal migration from vulnerable agricultural areas to urban industrial cities, to explore the human capital effects of these environmentally motivated response to climate change. The paper first presents the environmental argument for migration in response to climate change, together with examples of what the Vietnam Government has done to encourage migration from the rural (originating) areas to other rural resettlement and city (receiving) areas. It then uses data collected as part of recent study into the impact of government encouragement for internal migration to explore the labour force and human capital impacts in both the originating region and receiving areas. The findings suggest that while there are social and economic advantages there are challenges, including ensuring that job opportunities are available, migrants and appropriate skills, and that labour contracts provide for job security and healthy and safe working result in improved living conditions. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a more integrated approach that acknowledges and addresses associated human capital (skills upgrading) and business development needs and integrates these with environmentally-motivated policies.     

人力资本在经济增长中的作用：中国和巴基斯坦的比较研究

本文通过比较分析中国和巴基斯坦的经济增长 ,检验人力资本在各自国家经济增长中的作用。我们的结果是 :GDP与用除小学教育外不同教育水平的在校学生比率代表的人力资本有正相关关系 ,但是 ,当我们用各级学校的在校学生比率与劳动力相乘 ,反映参与GDP生产的劳动力的人力资本存量时 ,中国的GDP与所有各教育水平所表示的人力资本量成正相关关系 ,巴基斯坦小学层次的量则仍与其GDP增长成负相关。从总体上 ,对于两个国家来说 ,后一种测量方法要比用简单的在校学生率要好。     

人力资本理论在再就业培训中的应用

下岗再就业是当前政治经济生活中的一个重要问题。如何解决、安置下岗失业人员是关系到国计民生的大事。文章分析了目前我国人力资本及就业现状 ,提出进行职业教育和培训是解决下岗再就业的有效手段 ,人力资本投资对再就业工程的实施有深远的现实意义     

健康与教育：人力资本投资的比较研究

对于人力资本投资的两种主要形式———健康与教育 ,大量的研究集中于后者。随着经济的发展 ,健康人力资本在经济增长中的作用已越来越受到重视。从两种人力资本投资的异同与联系的比较分析中 ,介绍了健康投资的特征与测量等问题     

中国人力资本估算及其对中国经济增长的贡献

新经济增长理论认为人力资本对经济增长有着重要贡献,这也为很多实证研究所证实。本文首先使用收入法和教育年限法分别估算中国的人力资本存量。并对两种结果进行比较发现．后者与中国的实际情况更加吻合;随后利用教育年限法的估算结果。基于Johansen方法检验产出、资本总量和人力资本存量之间的协整关系,认为三者之间存在随机性协整关系。最后将人力资本存量分为劳动力和人力资本水平两部分．在协整分析的基础上研究人力资本积累对中国经济增长的贡献。结果表明．改革开放以来,固定资产投资一直是中国经济增长的主要推动力。但人力资本积累对中国经济增长的贡献度显著提高。     

Does Brain Drain Lead to Institutional Gain?

A country's endowment of human capital affects its institutions through various channels. This raises the possibility that skilled emigration can leave its mark on a country's institutional development. We explore the impact of emigrant human capital on home country's institutional quality. Using geographical and genetic distance‐based instrumental variables for emigration and a dynamic panel estimation method, we find that human capital emigration helps the home country's political institutions, but hurts economic institutions. The conventional ‘brain drain’ argument, therefore, needs to incorporate the institutional changes due to skilled labour emigration.     

Strengthening the alignment between tertiary education and economic development: the Belizean perspective

Researchers have established the role of tertiary education (TE) in economic development (ED). Globally, TE generates significant and multiple direct, indirect and catalytic economic impacts, which result in well‐established benefits pertaining to both individuals and broader economies. Last year, the government of Belize published its first comprehensive trade policy to develop a competitive economy, and it acknowledged that a shortage of skilled labour and competent human capital, among other factors, are core weaknesses towards trade development. Given the timeliness of the government’s trade policy, the following research question guided this study.

What can tertiary education do to strengthen alignment with economic development in Belize?

The findings revealed that three significant and interrelated factors can strengthen the link between TE and ED: they are (1) program development through strategic consultations (2) building on academic strengths and resources to increase the value proposition and (3) the implementation of talent engagement strategies.     

Demand uncertainty and the capital–labour ratio in Poland

This paper investigates the effect of demand uncertainty on the capital–labour ratio of non-financial firms in Poland. An eclectic model is used to characterise a utility maximising firm in a transition economy with demand uncertainty and imperfect competition. It is assumed that labour is completely variable and capital is quasi-fixed. The demand for capital, and hence the capital–labour ratio, derives from the optimisation of expected costs and the firm's pricing and output decisions, and crucially depends on the sign of the covariance term, i.e. the firm's risk behaviour. The main testable proposition of the model is that if firms are risk-lovers, an increase in demand uncertainty increases the capital–labour ratio, whereas the capital–labour ratio decreases when firms are risk-averse. The model is estimated using data from a cross-section of 148 non-financial firms in Poland. The results unambiguously show that there exists a significant positive relationship between demand uncertainty and the capital–labour ratio. This finding suggests that Polish firms are risk-lovers, i.e. they respond to demand uncertainty by increasing their capital–labour ratio because they are more concerned to have stable labour costs than they are to have stable profits. The evidence has important implications for the needed set of regulations and corporate governance in Poland as part of the necessary economic reform.     

Testing the human capital development model: the case of apprenticeships in Turkey

Human capital theory was developed to study how individual agents make rational choices or how they invest in human capital to maximize their welfare. One of the leading founders of this perspective, Becker, argues that schooling, on‐the‐job training, medical care, migration and searching for information about prices and incomes are different types of human capital as all these investments improve skills, knowledge or health, thereby increasing individual welfare. He states that education and training are the most important investments in human capital. Apprenticeship training is, thus, identified and treated as a type of investment in human capital. At first glance, it seems that apprentices who are being trained are acquiring skills in a specific vocation. One would suppose that the trainees are getting knowledge and skills and that they would become masters in their profession after a long training process. However, further enquiry is needed to see if this is the case in reality. The present small‐scale, exploratory study, based on 20 interviews – 10 with apprentices and 10 with their employers – aims to investigate the apprenticeship training system in Turkey. In doing so, it seeks to test the basic tenets of human capital theory against the facts discovered. The findings, if they could be generalized, suggest that the Turkish apprenticeship system is a form of child labour rather than a training process. Contrary to apprentice training being a human capital investment, the study finds that trainees do not rationally decide to enter an apprenticeship nor are they selected by a meritocratic system. All of them come from poor peasant families or low‐wage working families where the most pressing need is for the child to earn money.     

Education bias of trade liberalization and wage inequality in developing countries

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of increased trade on wage inequality in developing countries, and whether a higher human capital stock moderates this effect. We look at the skilled–unskilled wage differential. When better educated societies open up their economies, increased trade is likely to induce less inequality on impact because the supply of skills better matches demand. But greater international exposure also brings about technological diffusion, further raising skilled labour demand. This may raise wage inequality, in contrast to the initial egalitarian level effect of human capital. We attempt to measure these two opposing forces. We also employ a broad set of indicators to measure trade liberalization policies as well as general openness, which is an outcome, and not a policy variable. We further examine what type of education most reduces inequality. Our findings suggest that countries with a higher level of initial human capital do well on the inequality front, but human capital which accrues through the trade liberalization channel has inegalitarian effects. Our results also have implications for the speed at which trade policies are liberalized, the implication being that better educated nations should liberalize faster.     

Trade Union Responses to Outsourcing in a Neo-Liberal Environment: A Case Study Analysis of the Australian Public Sector

Australia has witnessed a rapid growth in outsourcing over the past decade with the public sector being the clear leader in these initiatives. Explanations of the rise of outsourcing tend to emphasize economic and human resources management factors and neglect the political dimension. In particular, unions and collective labour relations have been a target of a neo-liberal reform agenda pursued by both Labour and conservative governments, which has included outsourcing as a means of individualizing the employment relationship and reducing union influence. This can be seen clearly from the experience of the state of Victoria both in its reform of local government and its electricity generation industry where a carefully implemented programme of downsizing and outsourcing played upon existing divisions in the workforce. In both cases a pragmatic, survival oriented response from the major unions was elicited.     

Political Rivalry Effects on Human Capital Accumulation and Inequality: A New Political Economy Approach

We propose an endogenous growth model with new political economy elements in order to (1) examine how political incentives affect economic allocations and (2) study the effects of political rivalry on human capital accumulation and income inequality. Focusing on two important policies affecting economic performance—fiscal policy and public investments in human capital accumulation—we find that different political incentives have distinct effects on policies and economic allocations. We also find that political rivalry increases income inequality and reduces economic growth and human capital accumulation through its negative impact on public investments in education, wages and individual learning choice.     

我国经济增长要素贡献实证分析:不同人力资本指标比较

于相同模型和样本期,采用不同人力资本指标构造总量生产函数模型,测度了各因素对经济增长的贡献.结果表明,以基于预期收入法估算的人力资本货币存量指标较之成本法估算的人力资本流量指标、教育总年数或平均教育年数等人力资本代表指标等,能更好的用于模型的估计.而其他一些人力资本指标,如整合教育水平、预期劳动收入等多个因素的人力资本指数与预期收入法估算的人力资本货币存量的优劣比较还有待进一步的研究.     

Globalization,labour and the state: the case of Indonesia

Globalization has allowed internationally mobile capital to successfully ‘demand’ favourable investment climates, thereby increasing pressure on states to restrict the activities of organized labour. In the advanced industrial countries, the enhanced bargaining position of capital has helped to undermine the welfare state, the great compromise between state, capital and labour. But newly emerging labour movements in late industrializing countries like Indonesia are especially disadvantaged because of the global context characterized by the weakened bargaining position of labour. Nevertheless, labour strife has been on the rise in Indonesia in spite of long-established state mechanisms of labour control, usually legitimized in official discourse by reference to supposedly authentic Indonesian values that eschew conflict. This has to do with the gradual development of an urban-based industrial working class as the product of sustained industrialization until the economic debacle of 1997.     

FDI与经济增长、国内资本及劳动力作用机理

基于VAR理论及其模型,实证检验了1983-2006年以来我国利用外商直接投资与经济增长、国内资本及劳动力就业之间的相互作用机理认为外商直接投资对我国经济增长的作用符合新古典经济增长模型,对国内资本形成并无显著的促进作用,对劳动力就业只存在单向影响作用,旨在为我国利用外资提供决策依据。     

Political and Economic Arguments for Corporate Social Responsibility: Analysis and a Proposition Regarding the CSR Agenda

Different perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) exist, each with their own agenda. Some emphasise management responsibilities towards stakeholders, others argue that companies should actively contribute to social goals, and yet others reject a social responsibility of business beyond legal compliance. In addition, CSR initiatives relate to different issues, such as labour standards and corruption. This article analyses what types of CSR initiatives are supported by political and economic arguments. The distinction between different CSR perspectives and CSR issues on the one hand and between political and economic arguments on the other could help to advance the debate on the justification and welfare impact of CSR. It is argued that ordinary boundary conditions for business behaviour in a market economy provide support for some, but not all, CSR initiatives. This has implications for policy priorities. Building on the analysis, it is proposed that more attention should be paid to the behaviour of large multinational enterprises in their normal business operations and to CSR issues with a potentially large impact on market functioning.     

Intellectual Capital and the New Wealth of Nations II

In the second part of his analysis of intellectual capital and the issues it raises for managers, the author concentrates on the distinction between intellectual capital and human capital. In particular, he argues that intellectual capital is far more important than human capital in economic growth, the creation of wealth and competitive advantage. He concludes with a discussion of why business education has not made intellectual capital central to its curriculum despite its importance.