Decomposition of new venture growth into firm age,survey period and vintage effects

Firm data are accumulated on a yearly basis. In view of the linear relationship of firm age?+?foundation year?=?survey year, the fluctuations of firm data classified by age and period cannot be decomposed into age, period and cohort (foundation year) effects. Three decomposition methods are briefly reviewed and applied to Japanese data on new ventures founded since 1995. Regarding sales and employment growth, the age effect is the largest with a downward trend, and the cohort effect is negligible. Regarding labour productivity, the age effect indicates upward movements, and the cohort effect is negligible. The reason of the negligible cohort effect is discussed.     

Impact of oil booms and busts on human capital investment in the USA

This paper uses Census IPUMS data from 1970 to 2000 and ACS data from 2010 to estimate the impact of oil booms and busts on wages and human capital formation in the USA. The paper finds that the oil boom between 1970 and 1980 was associated with a slower growth in the relative demand for skills in the oil and gas sector and regions where the sector had a large presence. The oil boom led to a sharp rise in real wages and a modest decline in college wage premium in oil-rich regions in the USA. Using a synthetic cohort approach, the paper finds that relative to cohorts who went to high school in the pre-oil boom period, the cohort reaching high school age during the oil boom was about 1–2% points less likely to have a college degree by 2000 and 2010.     

The effect of computer use on earnings in Italy

This paper studies the effect of computer use on earnings among a cohort of recent Italian high school graduates. The IV and Heckman techniques are used in order to control for endogeneity of computer use. Results show that the wage premium associated with computer use disappears once selection into computer use is accounted for. On the other hand, using the computer to perform a number of specific tasks leads to higher earnings. It is therefore suggested that not all individuals who use a computer at work receive a wage premium, but only those possessing complementary computer skills such as communication, networking and problem solving abilities.      

论高中英语与大学英语的教学衔接

随着社会的发展,英语在我们的学习、工作和生活中发挥的作用愈益显著。然而,英语学习中．特别是高中英语和大学英语教与学中的分化现象日益严重,有不少大学生在大一开始不久就显示英语各方面学习不适应和反感厌倦。基于高中英语教学的经验,从听、说、读、写等四个方面分析高中学生在大学英语学〉-j中会遇到的问题,可以为高中英语与大学英语在教法和学法上的衔接提供了切实可行的思路和举措。     

Test scores,educational opportunities,and individual choice

A model combining student preferences for college with university admissions decisions is estimated to provide information on the role of test scores in the determination of post-secondary educational opportunities in the U.S. In contrast to implications of much of the recent criticism of tests and their use, we find that scholastic aptitude test scores are more strongly related to student application and choice of college ‘quality’ than to college admissions decisions. In addition, although there is a substantial correlation between test scores and high school performance, we find that both post-secondary school preferences and ultimate opportunities are related as much to performance in high school as to test scores themselves. Although SAT scores certainly exclude some persons from schools, our findings indicate that they do not represent an overriding constraint on the college opportunities of high school graduates.     

Education decisions and labour market outcomes

The financial return to a college degree is an increasing concern amid rising tuition costs and stagnant wages. Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), I analyse the effect of post-secondary choices on wages for individuals entering the labour force between 2004 and 2012. Matching methods provide evidence of strong returns to earning a bachelor’s degree for both genders, similar to previous literature. Relative to high school graduates, women see wage benefits of 8–21% for some college attendance. However, men see negative effects of between 6%–13% from some college relative to high school graduates. The returns to a sub-baccalaureate degree as compared to earning some two-year credits is between 8%–25% for women and 8–14% for men. Further, the wage returns to a sub-baccalaureate degree as compared to earning some four-year credits is between 9%–17% for women and 9–20% for men. This translates into an additional $2,500-$4,700 per year for women and an additional $2,900-$6,400 per year for men. Since the average respondent with some four-year college experience has 2.3 years of earned post-secondary credits, shifting some into sub-baccalaureate programs may substantially decrease both the financial and time commitments of post-secondary education while increasing the returns after degree attainment.     

论高校教育教学与就业的衔接

高等学校是为社会培养高级人才的摇篮,随着高等教育大众化,高校毕业生也面临着各种各样的就业压力,衔接好高校教育教学与毕业生就业之间的关系,提升大学生们的就业能力至关重要。     

The undergraduate economics coursework of elementary and secondary school teachers

Abstract

In this study, the authors analyze the undergraduate economics coursework of U.S. college graduates who became pre-college classroom teachers. The results show that teachers successfully completed on average the equivalent of about half an economics course in their undergraduate coursework. About 6 in 10 teachers earned no course credits in economics. Of teachers certified to teach social studies—the ones most likely to teach economics—40 percent did not take an undergraduate course in economics. The percentages are 19 percent for high school teachers, 48 percent for middle school teachers, and 76 percent for elementary school teachers. High school teachers certified to teach social studies completed an average of only about one and a half economics courses as undergraduates.     

Labour market consequences of a high school diploma

This article compares the labour market outcomes of high school dropouts to high school graduates who did not enrol into higher education, but immediately entered the labour market. Using parental educational background as an instrument on a rich administrative dataset in the Flemish Region of Belgium, we find no returns to a high school diploma on average. However, these results hide considerable heterogeneity by gender and educational track. While females and individuals in vocational education may benefit from a diploma, male graduates and students holding a general education diploma may even be worse off on the labour market than dropouts. We show that sectoral heterogeneity acts as an underlying mechanism in the returns to a high school diploma.     

The effects of cognitive ability and high school quality on college entry decisions: nonparametric estimation of parameters of interest

The decisions to attend college are analysed and nonparametric predictions compared to those obtained from the widely used logit model. The impacts of measured cognitive ability and proxies for high school quality on the decisions to attend college are examined for a sample of white and black males and females from the USA. Two different parameters of interest which isolate the effects of ability and high school quality on college entry decisions are described and estimated by ‘integrating out’ the effect of other covariates. It is found that measured cognitive ability is an extremely important determinant of college entry for all race and gender groups. At the same point in the ability distribution, blacks are more likely to select into college than whites, and females more likely than males of the same racial group. Proxies for high school quality such as teacher education, student teacher ratios, school enrolment and library size are shown to have little or no effects on the likelihood of college entry for all race and gender groups. Further, predictions obtained from the flexible nonparametric analysis are found to be quite similar to those obtained from the logit model, suggesting that simpler fully parametric binary choice models perform quite well as modelling college entry decisions.     

新疆大学生就业压力调查分析

自1999年高校实行扩招政策以来,大学毕业生人数不断增加,就业压力不断增大。本文借助新疆大学生调查资料,对新疆大学生就业压力的整体状况进行分析。分析得出：大学生综合素质不均、学校教学质量有待提高、社会就业条件较差等是造成目前新疆大学生就业压力增大的原因,今后应采取提高教学质量、加快第三产业发展、畅通就业输送渠道等措施来减轻新疆大学生就业压力,提高大学生对工作、生活的满意度。     

Accounting for the decline in homeownership among the young

This paper documents that the drop in young homeownership is more persistent among non-college graduates compared to college graduates: while some college graduates postpone home purchasing, non-college graduates are likely to remain long-term renters. I develop a model showing that the combination of rising college share and a widening education-driven income gap accounts for the delayed purchasing of college graduates and the lack of purchasing among non-college graduates. Exploiting cross-city variation, I verify the implications of the model and show that the mechanism can quantitatively account for the diverging ownership decisions between the two education groups from 1980 to 2019.     

Black-white earnings ratios: the role of cohort size effects

"While black-white earning ratios have been rising over time across cohorts [in the United States] there is some evidence that they have been dropping over time within cohorts of recent entrants to the labor market. This has coincided with the entry of the large baby boom cohorts into the labor market. This paper examines the role of race differences in cohort size effects on black-white earnings ratios for male high school graduates using Current Population Survey data. In larger cohorts, the black-white earnings ratio is lower at entry and falls as the cohort progresses through the career, consistent with recent evidence."     

Returns to education in China: a meta-analysis

Within labour economics, returns to education is an area of focused research. Moreover, amongst studies looking at emerging economies, China is the most widely studied economy. While there is a general consensus that returns to education are positive, studies use various datasets and methodologies and consequently present varying estimates of returns to education. We perform a meta-analysis of these estimates of the returns to education in China, addressing issues of heterogeneity in the existing literature and examining whether variations in reported estimates can be explained by study characteristics such as dataset and estimation methods, among others. The meta-regression results show that variations in reported estimates can be accounted for by study characteristics such as data source, estimation method and sample period, among others. The results support the college premium hypothesis and reveal that the returns to education for college graduates are higher than those for other (lower) levels of education.     

WELFARE REFORM, EARNINGS, AND INCOMES: NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE SURVEY OF PROGRAM DYNAMICS

The authors ask how welfare reform has affected the earnings and incomes of welfare recipients using a detailed longitudinal data set, the recently released Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD). They find pre-TANF waivers positively affected the earnings and incomes of both female high school graduates and nongraduates, but the effect is statistically significant only for nongraduates. In contrast, the effect of TANF policies is detrimental to nongraduates but improves economic outcomes for graduates. The findings indicate there are still families who are left behind by welfare programs. The results also warrant further use of longitudinal data sets such as the SPD. (JEL I38 , H53 )     

Labour force participation across Europe: a cohort-based analysis

We use a cohort-based model to analyse the determinants of labour force participation in six European economies, focusing on age and cohort effects as factors explaining differences in participation behaviour across countries. Cohort effects are particularly relevant for women with those born in the late 1960s and early 1970s more likely to participate over the life-cycle. Our results suggest that cohort effects can be interpreted as evolving social norms or preferences towards participating in the labour market according to Fernandez (NBER working paper no. 13373, 2007). We find substantial variation in the estimated age and cohort effects across European countries: cohort effects can account for a substantial part of the recent increase in participation in Spain, the Netherlands and Germany, and a positive, but smaller part of in the increase in participation of the UK, Italy and France. Looking forward, positive cohort effects could help counteract the downward impact of population ageing on participation.     

从成就测试卷分析看大学英语教学考试质量

本文通过对某高校英语专业05级学生期末试卷的分析发现:此类教学考试在质量上存在一定问题.大学英语教学考试质量应引起高校英语教师的充分关注,否则,此类教学考试中学生的英语成绩就难于客观和公正.     

Consumption,Income, and Wealth: Evidence from Age,Cohort, and Period Elasticities

This paper examines the relationship between non‐durable consumption, income, and wealth (housing and financial) allowing explicitly for generational heterogeneity. A framework is proposed to disentangle cohort, age, and period effects and the empirical analysis is based on the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey data. We find that there are significant generational differences and the results highlight the range of elasticities implicit in results presented, thus far, by age groups. Moreover, we find supporting evidence of humped shaped age profiles for the elasticity of consumption with respect to income and the importance of financial wealth for those aged 60+. The framework also allows us to generate cohort profiles which draw attention to the negative role of housing wealth for generation X, and period profiles which reinforce the role of financial wealth for the baby‐boom generation.     

Assessing policies to equalize opportunity using an equilibrium model of educational and occupational choices

The inter-generational correlation of education in the U.S. is tremendous. For instance, in PSID data from 1990, young males with college-educated parents had a 70% chance of attending college. But those with high school drop-out parents had only a 15% chance. In this paper, we analyze the impact of college attendance bonus schemes designed to increase college attendance rates (and PV of lifetime income) of youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. Of course, policies that increase the supply of skilled labor may reduce the college wage premium (see Heckman et al. [Heckman, James, Lochner, Lance and Taber, Christopher, Explaining rising wage inequality: explorations with a dynamic equilibrium model of labor earnings with heterogeneous agents, Review of Economic Dynamics, 1 (1998a), 1–58; Heckman, James, Lochner, Lance and Taber, Christopher, General-equilibrium treatment effects: a study of tuition policy, American Economic Review, 88:2 (1998b), 381–386]). This may have the unintended consequence of wiping out most of the gains to the targeted groups. The strength of such equilibrium effects on wages depends on the substitutability between different types of labor. Thus, it is important to evaluate education subsidies within an equilibrium framework that allows for flexible patterns of substitution across factor inputs. This is exactly what we do here, using an overlapping generations equilibrium model of the U.S. labor market fit to PSID data from 1968 to 1996. The model allows for imperfect substitution among types of labor differentiated by education, gender, age and ten (1-digit level) occupations — a much finer differentiation than has been considered in prior work.We find that very large college attendance bonuses are necessary to equate college attendance rates between youth whose parents had only high school degrees or were high school dropouts and youth whose parents attended at least some college. The size of these bonuses far exceeds any reasonable measure of college costs; suggesting the “costs” the bonuses overcome are primarily psychic or effort costs. For example, youth from disadvantaged backgrounds may be poorly prepared for college. This suggests that bonuses targeted at college age youth are probably a very inefficient way to reduce inequality. Earlier intervention is likely called for.