Human Capital Expansion and Aggregate Productivity Dynamic: Evidence from China

International Advances in Economic Research -     

Gender Differences in Educational Attainment: Evidence on the Role of Tracking from a Finnish Quasi‐experiment

In this paper we study the relationship between the timing of tracking of pupils into vocational and academic secondary education and gender differences in educational attainment and income. It is argued that in a comprehensive system, where students are tracked into vocational and academic schools relatively late (age 15–16), girls are more likely to choose the academic track than boys. We exploit the Finnish comprehensive school reform of the 1970s to analyse this hypothesis. This changed the Finnish school system from a selective to a comprehensive structure and postponed tracking from the age of 10–11 to 15–16. Since the reform was not implemented at the same time throughout the country, we can observe members of the same cohorts under both systems. The shift to a comprehensive system was found to increase gender differences in the probability of choosing an academic secondary education and of continuing onto academic tertiary education. Moreover, the reform decreased the gender wage gap in adult income by four percentage points.     

Intermarriage and the Intergenerational Transmission of Ethnic Identity and Human Capital for Mexican Americans

We investigate whether selective intermarriage and endogenous ethnic identification interact to hide some of the intergenerational progress achieved by the Mexican-origin population in the United States. In part, we do this by comparing an "objective" indicator of Mexican descent (based on the countries of birth of the respondent and his parents and grandparents) with the standard "subjective" measure of Mexican self-identification (based on the respondent's answer to the Hispanic origin question). For third-generation Mexican-American youth, we show that ethnic attrition is substantial and could produce significant downward bias in standard measures of attainment which rely on ethnic self-identification.     

Does Raising the Principal's Wage Improve the School's Outcomes? Quasi‐experimental Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment in Israel

This paper reports estimates of the causal effects of a 50 percent increase in the salary of headmasters of high schools in Israel. The results suggest that the program led to significant improvements in twelfth‐grade students' academic achievements. However, the effect was relatively modest, comprising increases of about 5–10 percent in the school mean matriculation rate, average score and number of subjects and credit units taken in matriculation programs. Based on these results and the lack of evidence regarding the effect of increasing teachers' salary, it seems that priority should be given to paying higher wages to school principals.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Education and Mediating Channels: Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform in Germany

In this paper, I estimate the causal effect that an additional year of schooling for parents has on their children's education, by exploiting a compulsory schooling reform that was implemented in all West German states between 1946 and 1969. Although previous research indicates that the reform had no effect on earnings, I find that an additional year of schooling for women strongly affects the education of their sons. There is no effect for the other parent–child gender pairs. I investigate numerous channels that might mediate the positive effect of the education of mothers. Most importantly, I find that individuals with more schooling value their children's educational success as more important.     

Rural–Urban Migration,Substitutability of Human Capital and City Productivity: Evidence from China

Among the studies on the productivity effect of migration, the role of the substitutability of human capital between migrant workers and local workers has not received much attention. The elasticity of substitution is important for rural–urban migration in China, because there is a substantial difference in schooling quality between rural and urban regions and because there is imperfect competition in city labor markets. Using aggregate city‐level data from the 2010 China Population Census, we find that the positive effect of human capital on city productivity improves as the substitutability increases. Moreover, a grid‐search shows that the “best” estimate of the substitutability in China is between 2.1 and 2.5, far from being complete.     

Corruption and privatization: Evidence from a natural experiment in China

This paper investigates how government corruption shapes state-owned enterprises' (SOEs) privatization. To establish causality, we exploit a natural experiment (i.e., the investigations of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection) to document that SOEs significantly deepen privatization after the crackdown on corruption. Further evidence demonstrates two plausible mechanisms driving our findings. Specifically, anti-corruption campaign: 1) accelerates privatization process by curbing the underpricing transfers to state entities and encouraging the normal transfers to private entities or individuals; and 2) by reducing managers' incentives to maintain the dominance of state ownership for expropriation through the discretion of perk consumption. Moreover, our findings are particularly pronounced for SOEs located in areas with high levels of social trust, government intervention, and less information asymmetry.     

Capital Structure Premium in Multinational SOEs: Evidence from China

We investigate the relationship among multinational operations, ownership and capital structure using data from China's A‐share listed companies. We find that, in general, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have lower leverages than domestic enterprises (DEs). More importantly, we document a capital structure premium in China's multinational state‐owned enterprises (SOEs). Since the state supports multinational SOEs that promote overseas national strategy, these multinational SOEs will have higher credit availability and therefore higher debt–equity ratios. This study sheds light on the Chinese government's impact on firm's creditability.     

中国工业企业投资的资本成本敏感性分析

本文以新古典投资模型为分析框架,首次使用1999—2007年中国全部国有及规模以上工业企业数据库,采用GMM动态面板方法估计了中国企业投资的资本成本敏感性,并检验了市场化改革是否显著提高了国有企业投资的资本成本敏感性。估计结果显示:(1)中国工业企业投资的资本成本敏感性显著为负,但相比净现金流系数,企业投资受资本成本的影响较小;(2)私营和外资企业的投资对资本成本较为敏感,而国有和集体企业的投资对资本成本不敏感;(3)市场化改革显著弱化了各类型企业的融资约束,但并没有显著提高各类型企业尤其是国有企业投资的资本成本敏感性。中国目前利率传导机制不畅的重点环节在企业投资,双轨制的利率模式和管制利率的低估扭曲了利率的价格信号作用,并创造了资金套利空间,加重了资金市场的二元结构特征,加快利率市场化步伐和继续深化国有企业改革是提高价格型货币政策工具有效性的必要途径。     

Signalling or Human Capital: Evidence from the Finnish Polytechnic School Reform

We use data from the Finnish polytechnic reform to distinguish between human capital and signalling theories of the value of education. We find that the reform increased the earnings of polytechnic graduates compared with those graduating from the same schools before the reform, as predicted by both the human capital and the signalling models. However, we also find that the relative earnings of vocational college graduates decrease after polytechnic graduates start entering the labour market. This finding is inconsistent with the pure human capital model and can be interpreted as evidence that supports the signalling model.     

The Role of Human Capital in Manufacturing Plant Growth: Evidence from Taiwan

In this study, we set out to investigate the potential relationships between plant growth and size, age and human capital using a unique employer–employee matched data set for the Taiwanese manufacturing industry from 1998 to 2005. The general assumption of a reduction in plant growth with increases in plant size and plant age is confirmed by our manufacturing industry data set, while plant growth increases with the stock of human capital, albeit at a diminishing rate, thereby implying a positive concave relationship between plant growth and human capital. Moreover, we find that for plants with higher levels of human capital, the reduction in plant growth is more moderate with regard to size than with regard to age, indicating that differences in the stock of human capital within plants will tend to lead to differences in the patterns of age and size impacts on such plants' growth. Finally, substantial differences were observed among the influences of the various characteristics on plants with high, moderate and low growth in size.     

资本充足率越高,银行的风险越低吗——基于利率风险的考察

资本充足率是衡量银行综合风险的重要指标,但该指标对银行的意义一直存在争议,而利率风险是银行最重要的风险之一,却少有文章从利率风险角度考察资本充足率变动对银行的影响.本文采用时变系数非参数方法针对中国上市银行进行了相关研究,结果发现:当利率上升会增加银行收益时,提高资本充足率将增大银行的利率风险.通过分析资本充足率的各种提高途径,我们认为银行大量发行次债以提高资本充足率的方式,可能产生新的利率风险.     

Interregional Migration of Human Capital and Unemployment Dynamics: Evidence from Italian Provinces

Since the mid‐1990s interregional migration flows in Italy have dramatically increased, especially from the South to the North. These flows are characterized by a strong component of human capital, involving a large number of workers with secondary and tertiary education. Using longitudinal data for the period 2002–2011 at NUTS‐3 territorial level, we document that long‐distance (i.e., South‐North) net migration of high‐skill workers has increased the unemployment at origin and decreased it at destination, thus deepening North–South unemployment disparities. On the other hand, long‐distance net migration of low‐skill workers has had the opposite effect, by lowering the unemployment at origin and raising it at destination. Further evidence also suggests that the diverging effect of high‐skill migration dominates the converging effect of low‐skill migration. Thus, concerns for an ‘internal brain drain’ from Southern regions look not groundless.     

Economic Growth and Human Capital Accumulation across Countries: Evidence from WAEMU Region

International Advances in Economic Research - Development policies often focus on health as human capital and require increased health expenditure in developing countries. This paper analyses the...     

全面理解人力资本的经济价值——教育经济学与培训经济学的融合

教育经济学不应只是正规学校教育的经济学,在终身学习的理念下,正规学校教育的结束并不意味着学习步伐的停滞和人力资本投资的终结。教育经济学未来拓展的路径,除了理论基础上的"外延式"发展外,还可以在原有的人力资本理论框架内走一条"内涵式"发展的道路,即强调综合考察人力资本投资的多种途径,特别是教育和培训这两种最主要的人力资本投资形式,让教育经济学走出正规学校教育经济学的固有领地,团结在人力资本理论的名义下,与培训经济学融合,走向人力资源开发研究的广阔天地,惟其如此,才能全面、深入地研究人力资本的经济价值及其实现机制。     

The Mechanisms Underlying the Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Three Examples from Australia

The growing debate on the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage has refocused discussion on the factors that influence this intergenerational process. This study provides a short review of the central mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of (dis)advantage and illustrates the importance of these mechanisms using findings from three recent studies undertaken in Australia using Australian household and administrative longitudinal data.     

Capital Inflows and House Prices: Aggregate and Regional Evidence from China

Rising house prices in China have been of concern for investors and policymakers. Prices have risen substantially in the last decade, especially in large urban cities, and some economists have expressed concerns about the affordability of residential housing for young adults. This phenomenon becomes a major concern for policymakers, in terms of managing policies to balance the residential needs of individuals and the transition to a market economy. Theoretically, house prices ought to be linked to economic factors such as disposable income, availability of land to build and credit policy. However, it appears that traditional economic theories fail to appropriately explain house prices in China. We provide an explanation from the perspective of capital inflows into China. In terms of per capita remittances, China receives the highest inflow of foreign capital, and this may have a significant impact on risk adjusted returns in the Chinese market. To investigate this relationship, we use the vector error correction model to assess the impact of capital inflows on house prices. We find that capital inflows have a significant positive effect on house prices. The study makes important contributions to understanding the relationship between house prices and foreign remittances after controlling for other economic factors. China is a large economy. Because the impact of economic development in China has not been consistent across the country, we address the regional differences in the house price changes to capital inflows. Using regional data, we show that capital inflows have an asymmetric effect on the housing market across different provinces and cities of China. This has important implications for the development of economic policies in China that aim to provide fair access to residential housing for everyone. These findings are also relevant to investors in the housing market, whether investing for a personal residential home or as part of their diversified investment portfolio. It will also be informative to see how a reversal of capital inflows associated with tighter financing conditions in advanced countries will affect house prices in China.     

Estimating returns to education in urban China: Evidence from a natural experiment in schooling reform

Whereas there is a large literature on estimating returns to education in China, few studies have attempted to address the endogeneity of schooling choices. We explore the arguably exogenous changes in the duration of secondary education as the instrumental variable to identify the causal effect of years of schooling in urban China. The schooling years in most middle schools were reduced from three years to two years during the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese government gradually restored the middle school education years from two years to three years after 1978. An important feature of these policy changes is their large geographic variations. From local gazetteers, we find out the exact years when education years were reduced from three to two and when they were restored from two to three. Using the exogenous variation in schooling reform, we estimate that the returns to education are 12.7% for both monthly wage and disposable income.     

Credit card cash‐out as informal financing: Evidence from China

Using a proprietary account‐level database from a commercial bank in China, we document that credit card holders can ease their credit constraints through the practice of cash‐out based on bogus transactions using credit cards. We find that such behaviour might be beneficial to both cardholders and banks. First, we find that a 1% increase in the cumulative number of credit card cash‐out transactions lowers the probability of default by 9.59%. Second, for private businesses, a 1% increase in the number of abnormal cash‐out transactions lowers overdue risk by 13.45%. Third, by lowering the overdue risk, the card‐issuing bank earns a larger profit. Our results are consistent with the notion that unconventional credit card cash‐out can mitigate the extent of capital misallocation in emerging markets.     

公共投入、人力资本与居民收入——来自省级面板数据的证据

本文将政府公共投入、人力资本和居民收入置于同一分析框架内,运用1990~2014年省级面板数据进行经验研究。采用固定效应模型的估计结果证实,政府公共投入与人力资本促进了居民收入的增长,且地方政府对区域人力资本的投资强化了后者对居民收入增长的促进作用。从全国层面来看,教育、医疗等非经济性公共投入比经济性公共投入更有利于居民收入提高。分样本实证结果显示,公共投入对居民收入的影响呈现出区域差异,东部地区非经济性公共投入对居民收入影响较大,而中西部地区经济性公共投入对居民收入的影响则更为明显。为此,公共部门在确保基础设施有效供给的同时应着力加大教育、医疗卫生等与民生相关的人力资本方面的投入,并充分考虑公共投入效果的区域差异性,以提高财政调控的区域有效性和针对性。