Location Choices of the Creative Class: Does Tolerance Make a Difference?

Human capital and members of the creative class are bearers of economic growth, yet little is known about exactly what the relevant factors are for the concentration of the highly skilled in a specific place. Tolerance for example is supposed to make the difference between creative and human capital. But does tolerance really make a difference for anybody? And what about other factors: Are they specifically relevant for creative individuals or simply valid for the whole population? This study contributes to the discussion on the highly skilled by investigating whether tolerance, taxes, or other regional amenities contribute to their concentration and dynamics. The results show that tolerance in particular toward immigrants, but also toward same-sex partnerships, is a rather dynamic concept, differs largely between and within functional urban regions, and makes a difference regarding the highly skilled.

How specific is apprenticeship training? Evidence from inter-firm and occupational mobility after graduation

Do apprenticeships convey mainly general or also firm- and occupation-specific human capital? Specific human capital may allow for specialization gains, but may also lead to allocative inefficiency due to mobility barriers. We analyse the case of Switzerland, which combines a comprehensive, high-quality apprenticeship system with a lightly regulated labour market. To assess human capital transferability after standardized firm-based apprenticeship training, we analyse inter-firm and occupational mobility and their effects on post-training wages. Using a longitudinal data set based on the PISA 2000 survey, we find high inter-firm and low occupational mobility within one year after graduation. Accounting for endogenous changes, we find a negative effect of occupation changes on wages, but no significant wage effect for firm changes. This indicates that occupation-specific human capital is an important component of apprenticeship training and that skills are highly transferable within an occupational field.

Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposals

There is a large literature demonstrating that positive economic conditions increase support for incumbent candidates, but little understanding of how economic conditions affect preferences for parties and for particulars of their platforms. We ask how exogenous shifts to the value of residents. human capital affect voting behavior in California neighborhoods. As predicted by economic theory, we find that positive economic shocks decrease support for redistributive policies. More notably, we find that conservative voting on a wide variety of ballot propositions--from crime to gambling to campaign finance--is increasing in economic well being.

Do Proctored Exams Matter In Online Classes?

Does the format of assessment (proctored or un-proctored exams) affect test scores in online principles of economics classes? This study uses data from two courses of principles of economics taught by the same instructor to gain some insight into this issue. When final exam scores are regressed against human capital factors, the R-squared statistic is 61.6% for the proctored format exams while it is only 12.2% for the un-proctored format. Three other exams in the class that had the proctored final were also un-proctored and also produced lower R-squared values, averaging 30.5%. These two findings suggest that some cheating may have taken place in the un-proctored exams. Although it appears some cheating took place, the results suggest that cheating did not pay for these students since the proctored exam grades were 4.9 points higher than the un-proctored exam grades although this difference was significantly different at only the 10% level. One possible explanation for this is that there was slightly higher human capital in the class that had the proctored exam although this must have occurred by chance since the students did not know if the exams were going to be proctored in advance so there is no issue of selection bias. A Oaxaca decomposition of this difference in grades was conducted to see how much was due to human capital and how much was due to the differences in the rates of return to human capital. This analysis reveals that 17% of the difference was due to the higher human capital with the remaining 83% due to differences in the returns to human capital. It is possible that the un-proctored exam format does not encourage as much studying as the proctored format reducing both the returns to human capital and the exam scores.

Wage Premia in Employment Clusters: Agglomeration Economies or Worker Heterogeneity?

The correlation between wage premia and concentrations of firm activity may arise due to agglomeration economies or workers sorting by unobserved productivity. A worker's residential location is used as a proxy for their unobservable productivity attributes in order to test whether estimated work location wage premia are robust to the inclusion of these controls. Further, in a locational equilibrium, identical workers must receive equivalent compensation so that after controlling for residential location (housing prices) and commutes workers must be paid the same wages and only wage premia arising from unobserved productivity differences should remain unexplained. The models in this paper are estimated using a sample of male workers residing in 33 large metropolitan areas drawn from the 5% Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 2000 U.S. Decennial Census. We find that wages are higher when an individual works in a location that has more workers or a greater density of workers. These agglomeration effects are robust to the inclusion of residential location controls and disappear with the inclusion of commute time suggesting that the effects are not caused by unobserved differences in worker productivity. Extended model specifications suggest that wages increase with the education level of nearby workers and the concentration of workers in an individual's own industry or occupation.

Economic Growth, Longevity, and the Epidemiological Transition

This paper integrates investments in health to a standard growth model where physical and human capital investments are the combined engines of growth. It shows the existence of two distinct health regimes separated by an 'Epidemiological Transition'. The various patterns of the transition identified in the epidemiological literature can be mapped into the model. The model also leads to the important hypothesis that the epidemiological transition may induce an economy to switch to a modern growth regime.

Liquidity Constraint and Child Labor In India: Is Market Really Incapable Of Eradicating It From Wage-Labor Households?

One way to measure the lower steady state equilibrium outcome in human capital development is the incidence of child labor in most of the developing countries. With the help of Indian household level data in an overlapping generation framework, we show that production loans under credit rationing are not optimally extended towards firms because of issues with adverse selection. More stringent rationing in the credit market creates a distortion in the labor market by increasing adult wage rate and the demand for child labor. Lower availability of funds under stringent rationing coupled with increased demand for loans induces the high risk firms to replace adult labor by child labor. A switch of regime from credit rationing to revelation regime can clear such imperfections in the labor market. The equilibrium higher wage rate elevates the household consumption to a significantly higher level than the subsistence under credit rationing and therefore higher level of human capital development is assured leading to no supply of child labor.

Endogenous Growth in the Presence of Informal Credit Markets: A Comparative Analysis Between Credit Rationing and Self-Revelation Regimes

This paper examines whether the presence of informal credit markets reduces the cost of credit rationing in terms of growth. In a dynamic general equilibrium framework, we assume that firms are heterogenous with different degrees of risk and households invest in human capital development. With the help of Indian household level data we show that the informal market reduces the cost of rationing by increasing the growth rate by 0.7 percent. This higher growth rate, in the presence of an informal sector, is due to the ability of the informal market to separate the high risk from the low risk firms thanks to better information. But even after such improvement we do not get the optimum outcome. The findings, based on our second question, suggest that the revelation of firms' type, based on incentive compatible pricing, can lead to almost 2 percent higher growth rate as compared to the credit rationing regime with informal sector.

Evaluation of obesity interventions targeting adults in the occupational setting

The study of obesity and its causes has evolved into one of the most important public health issues in the United States (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2007). Obesity is linked to several chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2008b) and the public health concern resides in the present morbidity and mortality associated with obesity and related conditions (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, 1998). Furthermore, obesity and its related conditions present economic challenges to employers in terms of medical health care, sick leave, short-term disability and long-term disability benefits utilized by employees (Østbye, Dement, and Krause, 2007). Recently, articles covering intervention programs targeting obesity in the occupational setting have surfaced in the body of scientific literature. The increased interest in this area stems from the fact that employees in the United States spend more time in the work environment than many industrialized nations, including Japan and most of Western Europe (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006). Moreover, scientific literature supports the idea of investing in healthy human capital to promote productivity and output from employees (Berger, Howell, Nicholson, & Sharda, 2003). The time spent in the work environment, the business need for healthy employees, and the public health concern create an opportunity for planning, implementation and analysis of interventions for effectiveness. This paper aims to identify those intervention programs that focus on the occupational setting related to obesity, to analyze the overall effect of diet, physical fitness and behavioral change interventions targeting overweight and obesity in the occupational setting, and to evaluate the details and effectiveness of components, such as, intervention setting, target participant group, content, industry and length of follow up. Once strengths and weaknesses of the interventions are evaluated, ideas will be suggested for implementation in the future.^

La teoría de la transición demográfica en Argentina : interpretaciones y derivaciones (1930-1950)

El trabajo tiene por objetivo mostrar cómo los círculos dirigentes de Argentina interpretaron la teoría de la transición demográfica presente en el país en los años 1930-1950 y cuales fueron las derivaciones hacia el tema del capital humano. Este concepto está atravesado por análisis sociológicos, sicológicos, biológicos de una gran vaguedad y sin rigurosos análisis sobre el desarrollo económico, partiendo de analogías no demostradas. Por consiguiente, el primer tema del trabajo se refiere a las fuentes que inspiraron a la dirigencia argentina en la asimilación de la teoría. Seguidamente, se señalan las relaciones y las analogías expuestas entre la situación demográfica argentina y la de los países industrializados de Europa. El tercer aspecto se centra en las derivaciones sociológicas, psicológicas, biológicas que extraen de la relación economía-población. Con lo cual, en forma tímida y sin claridad conceptual, se introducen en el tema del capital humano en el desarrollo económico del país.

La «empresa» como modo de subjetivación

A partir de nuestra investigación con ejecutivos de corporaciones transnacionales en Brasil, analizamos la difusión de la forma empresa y argumentamos que está en formación un ethos a partir de un conjunto de valores que derivan de conceptos formulados por teorías económicas y difundidos por doctrinas de la administración. Así, nociones como capital humano, emprendedorismo, innovación pasan a orientar la conducta de las personas y el neoliberalismo se impone como racionalidad gubernamental: una lógica normativa que define en la actualidad una cierta mentalidad y estilo de vida. Proponemos pensar, desde el último Foucault, a la empresa como modo de subjetivación.

Tipos de estrategias de obtención de ingresos y pobreza en familias mapuches rurales de Galvarino

Diversos estudios en Latinoamérica relacionan la condición de pobreza de las familias rurales con sus estrategias de obtención de ingresos; al respecto, se ha descrito una mayor presencia de pobres entre asalariados agrícolas que entre agricultores independientes, así como una menor incidencia de la pobreza en familias que han diversificado sus fuentes de ingresos. En Chile, las familias mapuches rurales mantienen índices de pobreza superiores al resto de la población. El menor acceso a activos físicos y capital humano, su localización en zonas de menor dinamismo económico y dificultades de acceso a mercados son algunas causas de esta realidad. El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar las relaciones entre estrategias de ingresos de familias mapuches rurales y las condiciones de pobreza de estas familias; para ello se construye una tipología de familias con el método de conglomerados. Los resultados arrojan tres tipos de estrategias: venta de mano de obra, dependencia y actividad silvoagropecuaria, que representan 54,5%, 26,2% y 19,3% de las familias, respectivamente. No se observan diferencias en la distribución de las familias pobres y no pobres por tipo de estrategia y, a pesar de la importancia de los ingresos extraprediales, las actividades por cuenta propia aún realizan un aporte relevante a los ingresos de estas familias.

Consideraciones críticas sobre el modelo de Alexander V. Chayanov

Este trabajo presenta un estado de la cuestión sobre la obra del economista ruso Alexander Chayanov y su crítica. El objetivo es analizar La organización de la unidad económica campesina (1924) desde una perspectiva que contemple tanto las intenciones del autor y la arquitectura de su obra como la crítica pasada y presente de sus lectores. Comenzando por los aspectos metodológicos, se propone revisar el modelo teórico básico y su funcionamiento real. Se entiende que el aislamiento del campesinado de su medio social más amplio es el método utilizado por el autor para construir un modelo conceptual de tipo puro. Sin embargo, su obra no se reduce a este objetivo. Al tratarse de una teoría práctica, Chayanov busca probar el funcionamiento real del modelo dejando caer los supuestos iniciales para insertar a los campesinos en el marco más amplio de la economía de mercado, introduciendo elementos ausentes en la simplificación inicial: la situación de mercado, los salarios y las inversiones de capital. El análisis conduce a sostener que la operación metodológica que el autor realiza para construir la teoría socava su capacidad explicativa. Se reflexiona, finalmente, sobre las virtudes y limitaciones de la obra desde una perspectiva histórica

Consideraciones críticas sobre el modelo de Alexander V. Chayanov

Este trabajo presenta un estado de la cuestión sobre la obra del economista ruso Alexander Chayanov y su crítica. El objetivo es analizar La organización de la unidad económica campesina (1924) desde una perspectiva que contemple tanto las intenciones del autor y la arquitectura de su obra como la crítica pasada y presente de sus lectores. Comenzando por los aspectos metodológicos, se propone revisar el modelo teórico básico y su funcionamiento real. Se entiende que el aislamiento del campesinado de su medio social más amplio es el método utilizado por el autor para construir un modelo conceptual de tipo puro. Sin embargo, su obra no se reduce a este objetivo. Al tratarse de una teoría práctica, Chayanov busca probar el funcionamiento real del modelo dejando caer los supuestos iniciales para insertar a los campesinos en el marco más amplio de la economía de mercado, introduciendo elementos ausentes en la simplificación inicial: la situación de mercado, los salarios y las inversiones de capital. El análisis conduce a sostener que la operación metodológica que el autor realiza para construir la teoría socava su capacidad explicativa. Se reflexiona, finalmente, sobre las virtudes y limitaciones de la obra desde una perspectiva histórica

Consideraciones críticas sobre el modelo de Alexander V. Chayanov

Este trabajo presenta un estado de la cuestión sobre la obra del economista ruso Alexander Chayanov y su crítica. El objetivo es analizar La organización de la unidad económica campesina (1924) desde una perspectiva que contemple tanto las intenciones del autor y la arquitectura de su obra como la crítica pasada y presente de sus lectores. Comenzando por los aspectos metodológicos, se propone revisar el modelo teórico básico y su funcionamiento real. Se entiende que el aislamiento del campesinado de su medio social más amplio es el método utilizado por el autor para construir un modelo conceptual de tipo puro. Sin embargo, su obra no se reduce a este objetivo. Al tratarse de una teoría práctica, Chayanov busca probar el funcionamiento real del modelo dejando caer los supuestos iniciales para insertar a los campesinos en el marco más amplio de la economía de mercado, introduciendo elementos ausentes en la simplificación inicial: la situación de mercado, los salarios y las inversiones de capital. El análisis conduce a sostener que la operación metodológica que el autor realiza para construir la teoría socava su capacidad explicativa. Se reflexiona, finalmente, sobre las virtudes y limitaciones de la obra desde una perspectiva histórica