HRD in a multipolar world： An introductory study

In the last two decades, the economic and political world was radically transformed. At the start, in the 1980s, the USA and the USSR ruled, in a bipolar context. But, after the fall of the Communist regimes, in the 1990s, a different form of world power sharing emerged, in which the USA, the European Union and Japan were the major players. That change was evident from the documents that were made by those political powers （i.e. the Lisbon agenda on human resource development （HRD））, which in itself contained a forecast of the world situation in 2010. However, life is by nature unpredictable, and the unforeseeable changes happen all the time. And, in the last decade, several main players emerged in the world scene, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China, the Arab World and Africa. In consequence, at the present moment, the world economy exists around at least 9 main players, 3 old and foreseen and 6 new and not foreseen. It is the author＇s opinion that this societal transformation should be addressed by the HRD community, because HRD scholars must study the more national relevant cases in a world that is changing very fast. Accordingly, in this paper, the author tries to make a rather introductory study in which he/she tries to define the basic economic variables for the HRD markets, namely demand, supply, need, equilibrium, investment, stock, flow, and return, for the USA, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India and China. The author uses the last available data, even if we tried to put the analysis in a historical perspective. The author concludes that several very different forms of situations exist in the HRD markets of those very important political entities.     

European policies to foster knowledge： The case of the European Social Fund-an introductory study

In recent years the European Union （EU） has struggled to become the leading force in the Knowledge Based Economy （KBE）. For that purpose, the EU defined the so-called ＂Lisbon Strategy＂. Additionally, since the sixties the EU （formerly European Communities （ECs）） invested in human resources and in knowledge using the European Social Fund （ESF）. This research tries to assess analyse critically those ECs＇ and EUs＇ investments in knowledge in the light of the economic analysis of the knowledge market. It concludes that there is evidence that the ESF has been an important provider of knowledge in Europe, contributing to the increase of knowledge levels. However, it could be concluded that the economic consequences of that effort were not assessed properly; therefore, it is not clear what the effects of the investment were. The few studies I found that may base the sort of analysis I want to make point to small, if existing effects of the ESF were small. This in itself is an interesting finding that deserves careful consideration.