SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Duncan, Natasha T.; Waldorf, Brigitte S..

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, developed countries have engaged in a race for the best and the brightest. States have been lowering barriers to entry and actively recruiting talent from abroad as the premium on human capital has increased in today’s knowledge economies and as demographic problems due to aging and low fertility are becoming a reality. What is interesting is that formerly immigration-adverse, non-traditional immigration states are now opening their doors to this pool of highly skilled migrants. From permanent residency to temporary visas not requiring employer sponsorship, states attempt to sweeten their offers to global talent so the latter would come to their shores. Even more interestingly, notwithstanding the current global...

Does Social Capital Create Trust? Evidence from a Community of Entrepreneurs

Palavras-chave: Immigration Policy; Economic Crisis; High Skilled Migrants; Non-linear Dynamic Model; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Agricultural Finance; International Development; International Relations/Trade; Labor and Human Capital; J24; J11; J61.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/58417

Sabatini, Fabio.

Which kind of social capital fosters the diffusion of development-oriented trust? This paper carries out an empirical investigation into the causal relationships connecting four types of social capital (i.e. bonding, bridging, linking, and corporate), and different forms of trust (knowledge-based trust, social trust, trust towards public services and political institutions), in a community of entrepreneurs located in the Italian industrial district of the Tuscia. Our results suggest that the main factors fostering the diffusion of social trust among entrepreneurs are the perception that the local community is a safe place, and the establishment of corporate ties through professional associations. Trust in people is positively and significantly correlated...

Threshold Effects and Regional Economic Growth - Evidence from West Germany

Palavras-chave: Trust; Social capital; Safety; Professional associations; Entrepreneurship; Corporate ties; Group and Interpersonal Processes; Social Perception and Cognition; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; J24; O15; Z13.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/52340

Funke, Michael; Niebuhr, Annekatrin.

We study an overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation with threshold effects using regional data for West Germany. Our basic goal is to shed light on the growth of West German regions. The paper finds that the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a trimodal distribution. Thus, application of the threshold model to a real world case, here West Germany, shows that the model might help to explain regional growth patterns. Ausgangspunkt der Analyse ist ein Modell überlappender Generationen der Humankapitalakkumulation mit Schwellenwert-Effekten. Die empirische Überprüfung des Modells basiert auf einem regionalen Datensatz für Westdeutschland. Das zentrale Ziel der Untersuchung ist es, Erkenntnisse zum Wachstum...

Intellectual Property Rights, Migration, and Diaspora

Palavras-chave: Regional Economic Growth; Human Capital; Germany; Labor and Human Capital; J24; O40; R11; C31.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/26141

Naghavi, Alireza; Strozzi, Chiara.

In this paper we study theoretically and empirically the role of the interaction between skilled migration and intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection in determining innovation in developing countries (South). We show that although emigration from the South may directly result in the well-known concept of brain drain, it also causes a brain gain effect, the extent of which depends on the level of IPRs protection in the sending country. We argue this to come from a diaspora channel through which the knowledge acquired by emigrants abroad can flow back to the South and enhance the skills of the remaining workers there. By increasing the size of the innovation sector and the skill-intensity of emigration, IPRs protection makes it more likely for...

Wage Rentals for Reproducible Human Capital: Evidence from Ghana and the Ivory Coast

Palavras-chave: Intellectual property rights; Migration; Technology transfer; Brain gain; Diaspora; Labor and Human Capital; O34; F22; O33; J24; J61.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/115817

Schultz, T. Paul.

Education, child nutrition, adult health/nutrition, and labor mobility are critical factors in achieving recent sustained growth in factor productivity. To compare the contribution of these four human capital inputs, as expanded specification of the wage function is estimated from household (LSMS) surveys of The Ivory Coast and Ghana. Specification tests assess whether the human capital inputs are exogenous, and instrumental variable techniques are used to estimate the wage function. Smaller panels from the Ivory Coast imply the magnitude of measurement error in the human capital inputs and provide more efficient instruments to estimate the wage equation. The conclusion emerges that weight-for-height and height are endogenous, particularly prone to...

Private Wage Returns to Schooling in Nigeria: 1996-1999

Palavras-chave: Endogenous human capital returns; Health; Migration; Schooling; Africa; Physical stature; Labor and Human Capital; J24; I12; O15; J31.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28533

Aromolaran, Adebayo B..

In the last two decades, primary and secondary school enrollment rates have declined in Nigeria while enrollment rates in post-secondary school have increased. This paper estimates from the General Household Survey for Nigeria the private returns to schooling associated with levels of educational attainment for wage and self-employed workers. The estimates for both men and women are small at primary and secondary levels, 2 to 4 percent, but are substantial at post-secondary education level, 10-15 percent. These schooling return estimates may account for the recent trends in enrollments. Thus, increasing public investment to encourage increased attendance in basic education is not justifiable on grounds of private efficiency, unless investments to increase...

An Economic Analysis of the Impact of Food Prices and Other Factors on Adult Lifestyles: Choices of Physical Activity and Healthy Weight

Palavras-chave: Schooling investment; Private wage returns; Efficiency; Equity; Nigeria; Labor and Human Capital; O15; I12; J24.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28489

Chen, Yanni; Huffman, Wallace E..

This paper examines women’s and men’s decisions to participate in physical activity and to attain a healthy weight. These outcomes are hypothesized to be related to prices of food, drink and health care services and products, the respondent’s personal characteristics (such as education, reading food labels (signaling a concern for good health), adjusted family income, opportunity cost of time, occupation, marital status, race and ethnicity) and his or her BMI at age 25. These decisions are represented by a trivariate probit model that is fitted to data for adults in the NLSY79 panel with geocodes that have been augmented with local area food, drink and health care prices. Separate analyses are undertaken for men and women due to basic physiological...

Bounds on Quantile Treatment Effects of Job Corps on Participants' Wages

Palavras-chave: Physical activity; Obesity; Food prices; Adults; Developed country; Consumer/Household Economics; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; I10; D10; J24.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/49987

Blanco, German; Flores, Carlos A.; Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso.

This paper assesses the effect of the U.S. Job Corps (JC), the nation's largest and most comprehensive job training program targeting disadvantaged youths, on wages. We employ partial identification techniques and construct informative nonparametric bounds for the causal effect of interest under weaker assumptions than those conventionally used for point identification of treatment effects in the presence of sample selection. In addition, we propose and estimate bounds on quantile treatment effects of the program on participants' wages. In general, we find convincing evidence of positive impacts of JC on participants' wages. Importantly, we find that estimated impacts on lower quantiles of the distribution are higher, with the highest impact being in the...

Labor Market Participation of Chinese Agricultural Households

Palavras-chave: Job Corps; Nonparametric Bounds; Principal Stratification; Active Labor Market Programs.; Labor and Human Capital; Public Economics; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; J24; J68; C14; C21.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103761

Glauben, Thomas; Herzfeld, Thomas; Wang, Xiaobing.

This work is devoted to the analysis of the different labor market participation regimes of Chinese farm households. Using household data over the period 1986-2000 from the province Zhejiang, we apply a multinomial logit model to empirically examine household, farm, and regional characteristics affecting the probability that farmers employ one of four alternative labor market regimes. Results suggest that labor market decisions are significantly related to several personal, farm, and village attitudes. In addition, we find the more market oriented policy reforms at the end of the 1980s stipulated that households participate in labor markets while the more anti-market reforms during the 1990s led to the opposite and encouraged autarky.

Why Foreign-Owned Firms are Different: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence for Austria

Palavras-chave: China; Labor markets; Agricultural household; Participation; Multinomial logit; Consumer/Household Economics; Labor and Human Capital; D13; J24; J43; Q12.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/24516

Pfaffermayr, Michael; Bellak, Christian.

This study examines performance gaps among foreign-owned and domestically-owned Austrian firms. In line with earlier findings our results suggest that the positive effects of participating in a foreign multinational's network can mainly be found in productivity and profitability. A further distinction between purely national firms and multinational enterprises (MNEs) reveals that both gaps derive from gains of MNE networks rather than from ownership per se. Regardless of ownership, MNEs are more similar than MNEs and purely national firms. Gaps concerning the investment propensity and growth are primarily explained by firm characteristics rather than foreign ownership. There is no evidence of an additional bonus resulting from closer cultural proximity of...

Brain Drain in Rural America

Palavras-chave: Multinational Enterprises; Industry Studies; Organisation of Production Labour Productivity; Industrial Organization; F23; L6; L23; J24.

Ano: 2000

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/26372

Waldorf, Brigitte S..

The paper aims at understanding changes in the distribution and accumulation of intellectual capital by analyzing migrants' educational profiles across a sample of 303 U.S. counties. The results suggest that newcomers are better educated than the resident population, and the education gap is most pronounced for newcomers from other states. The results further suggest that the educational status of newcomers "in-migrants" is positively related to the educational status of the resident population "stayers", thus implying a further agglomeration of human capital across space. However, for interstate migrants the effect is context-dependent, playing a greater role in urban than in rural settings.

Why would some migrants choose to engage in degrading work?

Palavras-chave: Human Capital; Migration; Brain Drain; Community/Rural/Urban Development; J24; R23.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/9866

Stark, Oded; Fan, C. Simon.

This paper develops a model of voluntary migration into degrading work. The essence of the model is a tension between two “bads:” that which arises from being relatively deprived at home, and that which arises from engaging in humiliating work away from home. Balancing between these two “bads” can give rise to an explicit, voluntary choice to engage in humiliating work. The paper identifies conditions under which a migrant will choose to engage in degrading work rather than being forced into it, to work abroad as a prostitute, say, rather than on a farm. The paper delineates the possible equilibria and finds that greater relative deprivation will make it more likely that the equilibrium outcome will be “engagement in prostitution.” It is shown that under...

Production Offshoring and the Skill Composition of Italian Manufacturing Firms: A Counterfactual Analysis

Palavras-chave: Migrants; Relative deprivation; Degrading work; Humiliation; Multiple equilibria; Welfare assessment; Policy implications; Labor and Human Capital; Political Economy; F22; J24; J81.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/101648

Antonietti, Roberto; Antonioli, Davide.

This work explores the effects of cross-border relocation of production on the skill composition of Italian manufacturing firms. Its aim is to assess if the firms strategy to offshore production activities towards cheap labor countries determines a bias in the relative employment of skilled versus unskilled workers. Using a balanced panel of firm-based data across the period 1995-2003, we test this skill-bias hypothesis by means of a counterfactual experiment in which we employ a difference-in-differences propensity score matching estimator in order to control for selectivity bias without relying on a specific functional form of the relations of interest. In line with the literature, our results point to confirm a general, although weak, skill bias effect...

Does Social Capital Mitigate Precariousness?

Palavras-chave: Production Offshoring; Skill Bias; Difference-in-Differences; Propensity; Labor and Human Capital; J24; F16; L24.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/7436

Sabatini, Fabio.

There is a surprising gap in the economic literature on social capital. First, we lack studies addressing the effects of social capital on those facets of development that can contribute in making growth more sustainable in the long run, like, for example, human development and social cohesion. Second, it is still unclear what type of networks may exert a positive effect on the different dimensions of development. In particular, the literature has not yet provided a rigorous assessment of the role of strong family ties, that are generally referred to as a form of bonding social capital causing backwardness. This paper carries out an empirical investigation into the relationship between the three types of social capital so far identified by the literature...

Human Resources in China: The Birth Quota, Returns to Schooling, and Migration

Palavras-chave: Social capital; Human development; Labour market; Precariousness; Italy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Labor and Human Capital; Risk and Uncertainty; J24; O15; Z13.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/6358

Schultz, T. Paul.

Rural elderly have 40% of the income of those in urban areas, spend a larger share of their income on food, are in worse health, work later into their lives, and depend more on their children, lacking pensions and public services. The birth quota since 1980 has particularly restricted the childbearing of rural less educated women, who now face retirement with fewer children for support. Inequality in China is also be traced to increasing returns to schooling , especially beyond secondary school. Government restrictions on rural-urban migration reduces national efficiency, adds to the urban-rural wage gap, and increases inequality.

Migrant Labor Markets and the Welfare of Rural Households in the Developing World: Evidence from China

Palavras-chave: Human capital returns; Rural-urban migration; Elderly poverty; China; Labor and Human Capital; J13; J24; J14.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28437

de Brauw, Alan; Giles, John.

In this paper, we examine the impact of reductions in barriers to migration on the consumption of rural households in China. We find that increased migration from rural villages leads to significant increases in consumption per capita, and that this effect is stronger for poorer households within villages. Household income per capita and non-durable consumption per capita both increase with out-migration, and increase more for poorer households. We also establish a causal relationship between increased out-migration and investment in housing and durable goods assets, and these effects are also stronger for poorer households. We do not find robust evidence, however, to support a connection between increased migration and investment in productive activity....

Nonlinearity in the Return to Education

Palavras-chave: Migration; Migrant Networks; Consumption; Poverty; Wealth; Rural China; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Labor and Human Capital; O12; O15; J22; J24.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/6085

Labor Supply Decisions of Rural Low-Income Mothers

Trostel, Philip A..

This study estimates marginal rates of return to investment in schooling in 12 countries. Significant systematic nonlinearity in the marginal rate of return is found. In particular, the marginal rate of return is increasing significantly at low levels of education, and decreasing significantly at high levels of education. This may help explain why estimates of the return to schooling are often considerably higher when instrumenting for education.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Return to education; Nonlinearity; Instrumental variables; I20; J24.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/37550

Mammen, Sheila; Lass, Daniel A.; Seiling, Sharon B..

Labor force participation is crucial to the economic well-being of low-income rural families. This study identified the factors that influence two decisions that low-income rural mothers make regarding their employment: labor force entry and number of hours supplied to employment. The sample consisted of 412 rural low-income mothers who participated in a multi-state study. The logistic regression model correctly predicted 80 percent of their work participation decisions. Employed rural mothers appeared to be older, better educated, and less likely to suffer from depression compared to those not working. Additionally, they were more likely to have an employed partner, a driver's license, child care assistance, and Earned Income Tax Credit from the previous...

Productivity and Efficiency of Corporate and Individual Farms in Ukraine

Palavras-chave: Rural Low-income Mothers; Labor Force Participation; Women's Labor Supply; Welfare Reform; Labor and Human Capital; D13; I38; J24; R29.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/7381

Lerman, Zvi; Sedik, David J..

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the productivity of corporate and individual farms in Ukraine based primarily on cross-section data from a farm survey conducted by FAO in 2005. We calculate partial land and labor productivity, total factor productivity, and technical efficiency scores (using Stochastic Frontier Analysis) for farms of different organizational forms. Our results demonstrate with considerable confidence that, contrary to established convictions among the Ukrainian decision makers, the large corporate farms are not more productive than the smaller family farms. This finding is not restricted to Ukraine, as a similar result has been obtained by in Moldova, Russia, and the U.S. Policies encouraging a shift from large corporate farms...

A Composite Fuzzy Indicator for Assessing Farm Household Potential for Non-farm Income Diversification

Palavras-chave: Family farms; Corporate farms; Comparative performance; Technical efficiency; Total factor productivity; Agrarian reforms; Transition countries; Farm Management; Productivity Analysis; D24; J24; P27; P31; P32; Q12; Q15; R14.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/9985

Fritzsch, Jana.

European politicians encourage the income diversification of rural households through various measures. Although being aware of farm households’ potential for non-farm income diversification seems important for finely-targeting such policy measures, no attempt has thus far been made to summarise the various determinants of income diversification in a single figure. This contribution aims to close this gap. A composite fuzzy indicator that measures farm household potential for non-farm income diversification is developed and applied to 1,053 farm households in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia. The indicator summarises the incentives of and capacities for non-farm income diversification on the individual household member level, and on the...