Literacy Skills and Earnings: Race and Gender Differences

This study examines differences in returns to literacy skills on earnings of black and white men and women. Literacy skill is a composite measure of three scales: reading comprehension, document literacy (the ability to locate and use information in, say, tables and graphs), and mathematics proficiency. Using data from the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), we estimate earnings determination models separately for each racial/gender group. Our findings show that the effect of literacy on earnings varies by race and gender. Literacy skills favorably rewarded black men relative to black women and white men and women, net of education and other relevant variables. More importantly, literacy completely explained the effect of a high school diploma and some college on earnings of black men. We conclude that the economic importance of literacy skills is particularly salient for less-educated black men.     

产业升级进程中职业技术技能的发展趋势及学习提升分析——以制造业为例

分析了产业升级与技术技能升级关系,产业升级进程中企业一线员工职业技术技能的发展趋势,探讨了如何促进职业技术技能的学习提升。     

职业技能大赛对职业教育发展的影响力研究

职业技能大赛是职业院校办学的一个重要指导方向,对职业院校的职业教育发展有重要的影响,取得了很好的成效。本文着力探讨了国家级职业技能大赛的举办对教师及学科建设方面的影响,量化职业技能大赛对学生的具体影响,分析对职业技能大赛校企合作、实训基地的建设等方面的影响。从而推进一些有利于职业教育发展的职业技能大赛,提高指导教师的指导能力,确保职业技能大赛更好的发挥作用。     

女性创业政策分析——欧盟的经验及对我国的启示

创业是在可控资源匮乏的前提下识别、追求机会,进而通过高度综合的管理活动。女性创业对经济发展的作用已经引起社会各方面的重视,各国政府都采取了相应的措施支持女性创业。创业政策主要由3个主要方面组成:激励角度、技能角度和机会角度,欧盟在这三方面有许多成功的经验值得我国借鉴,可将其成功的女性创业政策嵌入我国的特定情境,促进我国女性创业水平的提高。     

Education,skill training,and lifelong learning in the era of technological revolution: a review

Rapid technological development makes skills depreciate faster than in the past while new technologies generate gaps in workers' skills and call for the acquisition of appropriate skills and lifelong learning. Proper skill mixes for future jobs include strong cognitive skills, basic information and communication technology, and analytical skills, as well as a range of non-cognitive skills such as creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication. Retraining and reskilling workers are also crucial, particularly as life expectancy increases. All these changes lead to a major rethinking of education and skill training throughout a person's life. This paper reviews the recent studies on human capital and skill formation in the era of rapid technological progress. Findings from these studies, particularly in labour economics, can shed light on new directions for lifelong education policies, for example (1) parental investment in pre-school learning is reflected in highly positive adult outcomes; (2) as far as education inputs are concerned, teacher quality is far more important than additional school resources; and (3) government workforce training programs are largely ineffective as compared to private training, which contribute significantly to worker productivity.     

The composition of the human capital stock and its relation to international trade: Evidence from the US and Britain

The Composition of the Human Capital Stock and Its Relation to International Trade: Evidence from the US and Britain. — This paper examines the factor intensity of US and UK trade using standard factor content techniques. In particular, it considers the role of labour skills in international trade. The principal focus is to demonstrate that specialisation according to skills has two dimensions-according to the general level of human capital and according to different types of skill at the same level of education and training. This analysis is conducted for different trading partners for each country. The paper also offers some methodological evidence on the effects on factor content analysis of the (dis)aggregation of factors and on the role of internationally varying production techniques.     

城市化驱动经济增长的空间计量分析:2000～2009

本文以一种地理空间的视角,采用探索性空间数据分析,考察了中国内地31个省域城市化对经济增长驱动作用的大小。实证研究的结果表明,各个省域城市化和经济增长均存在着空间自相关;城市化率对经济增长贡献逐渐增大;城市消费对经济增长拉动作用显著,但进一步上升的速度缓慢;城市投资推动经济增长的迹象逐步显现;城市政府支出对经济增长的作用在不断减小。另外,本文在研究中还发现,与空间计量模型相比,普通回归模型由于忽略了空间因素,存在着不同的高估或低估现象。     

Synthetic approaches in manpower planning

Summary An iterative educational planning scheme is proposed in which labor skill requirements are first assessed through the manpower requirements approach and then evaluated according to the rate of return approach. In this way the technical requirements in production (manpower approach) are subject to an economic optimality test (rate of return approach). The cost-benefit evaluation of present or planned labor skill structures can take place in a static linear programming framework or by using a neo-classical production function which incorporates substitution possibilities between labor skills.     

Skills and unemployment

This article attempts to spell out the links which are assumed to exist between skills and unemployment. It is argued that the claims made for the beneficial effects of raising the skill levels of the workforce have been exaggerated. The author then goes on to indicate some of the other factors which influence unemployment levels, and sketches the relevance of this to local economic initiatives.     

Skills audits - a framework for local economic development

Skill creation and utilisation are important to local economic development as they represent an area in which local authorities have a track record of intervention and some very real powers, through their ability to influence parts of the training infrastructure. There is, of course, no direct causal link between changes to the training system and local economic performance. Fine-tuning the training infrastructure to meet identified needs in the labour market must be recognised as a necessary not a sufficient condition for creating or retaining jobs.

In providing an organising framework for a skills audit we have emphasised the four dynamic elements of a local skills pool: utilised skills, under-utilised skills, and the depletion and replenishment of skills. From our initial run through of the framework several factors already emerge as important considerations -- the need to try to establish an age profile of skilled workers, the desirability of providing a .local technology profile and the need to foster and maintain responsiveness in the training system to changing skill needs. This latter aspect requires local initiatives to improve signalling between demand and supply for training.     

高职“数控设备故障诊断与维修”课程教学平台的构建

职业教育的培养对象主要具有形象思维的特点。为使同一知识内容的学习可以通过多元路径进行,创造每位学生最优化的学习方式的组合,基于E-learn ing内容架构,构建了一个高职＂数控设备故障诊断与维修＂课程的教学平台,突出以工作过程化为导向的职业教育特色,以期对培养学生的职业技能有一些参考意义。     

The Supply Side of the Race Between Demand and Supply: Policies to Foster Skill in the Modern Economy

In his celebrated book on income inequality, Jan Tinbergen (1975) wrote about the race between demand and supply in determining the evolution of wages and inequality. The demand side of the recent labor market is well understood. Skill-biased technical change favors skilled workers in many different economic environments. The supply side is less well understood. In the Netherlands, until recently, the supply side was winning and the returns to education were declining or stagnant. The exact reasons for this phenomenon are not well understood. Recently, however, there is evidence that suggests that the returns to schooling are increasing and that demand is outstripping supply, as it has done in most developed countries around the world. This has produced rising wage inequality. Unless more active supply side measures are undertaken, this trend is likely to continue. This problem, joined with the persistent problem of immigrant assimilation and the growing role of immigrants in the Dutch economy, renews interest in the supply side of the labor market. This lecture examines the determinants of the supply of skills in the short run and the long run. It examines the roles of short- term credit constraints and long-term family factors in fostering or retarding skill accumulation. It summarizes the evidence on a number of policy proposals to foster skills including early childhood programs, programs to alleviate short-term financial pressure, job training and second chance programs, and tax policies. This lecture stresses the cumulative dynamic nature of skill production and the importance of recognizing that skill begets skill in designing suitable policies to reduce inequality and foster economic growth. While the evidence is based on American data, the lessons are relevant for economies around the world. Specific lessons for the Netherlands are emphasized.     

中国当前劳动力技能短缺与企业应对

随着人口红利减弱,中国技能短缺问题愈发突出,如何有效应对技能短缺成为当前经济社会发展面临的紧迫问题。文章就雇主应对技能短缺的方式提出四个假设,并基于中国人民大学劳动人事学院"中国雇主—雇员匹配数据追踪调查",采用Tobit模型考察了雇佣条件在改善技能短缺上发挥的作用。结果表明：工资对技能短缺的影响并不显著,没有证据显示上调工资能改善企业的技能短缺问题,而签订长期劳动合同有利于缓解高技能劳动力短缺,强化在职培训和劳动保护有助于改善低技能劳动力短缺。本研究为破解技能短缺难题提供参考,企业应对技能短缺应因事为制,避免提高工资的惯性思维,注重高技能劳动者在职业发展上的需求,关注低技能劳动力在劳动保护上的诉求,并保证持续有效的在职培训。     

Synchronized job transfer and task-specific human capital

Recent evidence suggests that frequent and broad lateral transfers increase the possibility of promotion. A question is how firms save the costs of these frequent lateral transfers given the existence of job-specific skills. This paper proposes a new theory of the transition across jobs based on the assumption that each job consists of tasks and that each of these tasks requires specific skills. This shows that firms synchronize the promotions and lateral transfers of their employees to reduce the cost of transferring to the employee those task-specific skills required for a new position. We find that this unique prediction is broadly supported by a large personnel data set in Japan.     

Postschool education and training: Accessible to all?

This article examines knowledge and skill development during early adulthood when the individual has severed ties with formal education and entered the world of work. Focusing on a cohort of young men from the National Longitudinal Surveys, the paper examines the economic and social forces influencing participation in various forms of postschool education and training. A recursive model is used to explore skill development patterns over the lifecycle. Attention is focused on the role of early human capital development and its influence on the cost and incentives for subsequent skill development in the adult working years. The findings point to the cumulative nature of skill development over the lifecycle with some important implications for efforts to reduce economic and social inequalities for blacks and whites.     

The growth and valuation of computing and other generic skills

This paper describes a method for measuring job skills usingsurvey data on detailed work activities, and using these measuresexamines whether the utilisation of skills is growing, and howthey are valued in the labour market. We show that between 1997and 2001 there was a growth in Britain in the utilisation ofcomputing skills, literacy, numeracy, technical know-how, high-levelcommunication skills, planning skills, client communicationskills, horizontal communication skills, problem-solving, andchecking skills. Computer skills utilisation was growing thefastest, and the use of computers was becoming more sophisticated.We re-evaluate the issue of whether computers have affectedwages, taking into account existing critiques in the literature.We find that both computer skills and high-level communicationskills carry positive wage premia, as shown both in cross-sectionhedonic wage equations that control for many detailed activities,and through a within-cohorts change analysis.     

新国际经济背景下的上海自由贸易区

以国际经济视角解读上海自由贸易区建立的时代背景、历史使命,阐述上海自贸区的制度创新点以及由此可能带来的连锁反应,并对相关社会、经济问题该如何解决提出建议.     

电视产业如何进行经济规制

对电视产业进行经济规制给出一个概括性的研究框架,把规制经济学的思想和方法应用于电视产业,来 论述电视产业进行经济规制的理论基础、特有的规制结构、引入竞争的方式,以及普遍服务等问题,可为更好地理解 我国电视产业规制政策的调整提供一个新的视角。