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

Stark, Oded; Byra, Lukasz.

In this paper we study the impact of the international migration of unskilled workers on skill formation and the average skill level in the home country. We analyze what appears to be the least threatening scenario from the point of view of its effect on the supply of skills at home: namely, migration exclusively by unskilled workers. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that even without the departure of skilled workers, the home country suffers reduced aggregate skill formation. Although as a response to a higher wage rate per unit of human capital in the new equilibrium skilled workers choose to accumulate more human capital than before the opening up to migration of unskilled workers, the number and share of skilled workers in the home country’s workforce...

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Migration of unskilled workers; Human capital formation; Depletion of human capital; Labor and Human Capital; F22; J24; O15.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/122433

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

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...

A Social Network Analysis of Occupational Segregation

Palavras-chave: Composite indicator; Fuzzy logic; Rural non-farm income diversification; Transition countries; Consumer/Household Economics; C65; J24; Q12; R23.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/114349

Van der Leij, Marco J.; Buhai, I. Sebastian.

We develop a social network model of occupational segregation between different social groups, generated by the existence of positive inbreeding bias among individuals from the same group. If network referrals are important for job search, then expected homophily in the contact network structure induces different career choices for individuals from different social groups. This further translates into stable occupational segregation equilibria in the labor market. We derive the conditions for wage and unemployment inequality in the segregation equilibria and characterize first and second best social welfare optima. Surprisingly, we find that socially optimal policies involve segregation.

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

Palavras-chave: Social Networks; Homophily; Inbreeding Bias; Occupational Segregation; Labor Market Inequality; Social Welfare; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Labor and Human Capital; J24; J31; J70; Z13.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/6224

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, 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 differences. Results include: Women and men...

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

Palavras-chave: Physical Activity; Obesity; Food Prices; Adult; United States; Consumer/Household Economics; Health Economics and Policy; Labor and Human Capital; I10; D10; J24.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/49291

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...

Brain Drain in Rural America

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

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.

Casting the naturalization of asylum seekers as an economic problem

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

Ano: 2007

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

Stark, Oded.

The naturalization of asylum seekers is modeled as an economic problem. In choosing their level of investment in host-country-specific human capital, asylum seekers take into consideration the probability of their being naturalized. The government of the host country chooses the probability of naturalization that most encourages the acquisition of such human capital. That human capital, in turn, increases the asylum seekers’ productivity and earnings and, consequently, maximizes the government’s tax receipts if the asylum seekers are allowed to stay permanently. Conditions are presented under which the optimal level of investment in the host-country-specific human capital is positive, and rises in the probability of naturalization. The asylum seeker’s...

Palavras-chave: The probability of naturalization; Investment in host-country-specific human capital; Economic behavior of asylum seekers; Economic behavior of the government of the host country; Stackelberg game; Financial Economics; Labor and Human Capital; Political Economy; A13; F20; J24; J41; J61.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/62160

Child Labor

Udry, Christopher R..

Child labor exists because it is the best response people can find in intolerable circumstances. Poverty and child labor are mutually reinforcing: because their parents are poor, children must work and not attend school, and then grow up poor. Child labor has two important special features. First, when financial markets are imperfect, the separation in time between the immediate benefits and long-delayed costs of sending children to work lead to too much child labor. Second, the costs and benefits of child labor are borne by different people. Targeted subsidies for school attendance are very effective in reducing child labor because they successfully address both of these problems.

Determinants of Poverty among U.S. Farm Households

Palavras-chave: Child labor; Human capital; Household economics; Labor and Human Capital; J24; O15.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28393

El-Osta, Hisham S.; Morehart, Mitchell J..

This research uses data from the 2004 Agricultural Resource Management Survey and probit regression to examine the determinants of poverty among U.S. farm households. The findings reveal, among others, the importance of a livelihood strategy that combines participation in government programs and off-farm work in lowering poverty rates. Findings also show the importance of educational attainment of the farm operator in mitigating poverty, but only when poverty is measured on a relative rather than an absolute basis. Policy recommendations are provided in the context of these findings.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Composite measure of economic well-being; Government programs; Off-farm work; Poverty; Agricultural Finance; Financial Economics; Labor and Human Capital; J23; J24; D3; I21; I32; C81.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/45037

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

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...

Does Social Capital Mitigate Precariousness?

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

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...

Earnings Effects of Household Investment in Health in Colombia

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

Ribero, Rocio.

This study considers the links between primary indicators of health and individual labor productivity in Colombia and explores how additional public expenditures on health may improve individuals health. Sample statistics show that illness occurs more frequently for women than for men, for less educated than for more educated, for rural than urban residents, and for older individuals. The well educated are considerably taller than those without schooling (6 cm. for males and 4 cm. for females). The empirical evidence confirms that health indicators are related to individual earnings in Colombia. A Mincerian log-earnings equation that includes health indicators as a form of human capital in addition to schooling is specified. When the morbidity variable is...

Economic Growth, Comparative Advantage, and Gender Differences in Schooling Outcomes: Evidence from the Birthweight Differences of Chinese Twins

Palavras-chave: Earnings; Height; Health indicators; Consumer/Household Economics; Health Economics and Policy; I12; J00; J24.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28474

Rosenzweig, Mark R.; Zhang, Junsen.

Data from two surveys of twins in China are used to contribute to an improved understanding of the role of economic development in affecting gender differences in the trends in, levels of, and returns to schooling observed in China and in many developing countries in recent decades. In particular, we explore the hypothesis that these phenomena reflect differences in comparative advantage with respect to skill and brawn between men and women in the context of changes in incomes, returns to skill, and/or nutritional improvements that are the result of economic development and growth.

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Schooling; Gender; Twins; China; Health Economics and Policy; International Development; Labor and Human Capital; Productivity Analysis; J24; J16; I15; I25; O15.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/121672

Education, Reputation or Network? Evidence from Italy on Migrant Workers Employability

Mazzanti, Massimiliano; Mancinelli, Susanna; Ponti, Giovanni; Piva, Nora.

The strong adverse selection that immigrants face in hosting labour markets may induce them to adopt some behaviours or signals to modify employers’ beliefs. Relevant mechanisms for reaching this purpose are personal reputation; exploiting ethnic networks deeply-rooted in the hosting country; and high educational levels used as an indirect signal of productivity. On this last point, the immigrant status needs a stronger signal compared to that necessary for a local worker, and this may lead the immigrant to accept job qualifications which are lower than those achievable through the embodied educational level. This could explain the over education problem that characterizes many countries, Italy included. The aim of the paper is to investigate whether the...

Effects on School Enrollment and Performance of a Conditional Transfers Program in Mexico

Palavras-chave: Educational Qualifications; Migrant Networks; Immigrant Employability; Reputation; Segmented Labour Markets; Labor and Human Capital; D82; J24; I2; F22.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/52344

Dubois, Pierre; de Janvry, Alain; Sadoulet, Elisabeth.

We study the effects of a conditional transfers program on school enrollment and performance in Mexico. We provide a theoretical framework for analyzing the dynamic educational decision and process including the endogeneity and uncertainty of performance (passing grades) and the effect of a conditional cash transfer program for children enrolled at school. Careful identification of the program impact on this model is studied. This framework is used to study the Mexican social program Progresa in which a randomized experiment has been implemented and allows us to identify the effect of the conditional cash transfer program on enrollment and performance at school. Using the rules of the conditional program, we can explain the different incentive effects...

Endogenous Selection of Comparison Groups, Human Capital Formation, and Tax Policy

Palavras-chave: Education demand; Schooling decisions; School performance; Dynamic decisions; Treatment effects; Transfer program; Randomized experiment; Mexico.; Labor and Human Capital; C14; C25; D91; H52; H53; I21; I28; J24.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/25064

Stark, Oded; Hyll, Walter; Wang, Yong.

This paper considers a setting in which the acquisition of human capital entails a change of location in social space that causes individuals to revise their comparison groups. Skill levels are viewed as occupational groups, and moving up the skill ladder by acquiring additional human capital, which in itself is rewarding, leads to a shift in the individual’s inclination to compare himself with a different, and on average better-paid, comparison group, which in itself is penalizing. The paper sheds new light on the dynamics of human capital formation, and suggests novel policy interventions to encourage human capital formation in the aggregate and, at the same time, reduce inter-group income inequality.

Evidence of Returns to Schooling in Africa from Household Surveys: Monitoring and Restructuring the Market for Education

Palavras-chave: Human capital formation; Skill levels as occupational groups; Interpersonal comparisons; Relative deprivation; Tax policy; Subsidization; Labor and Human Capital; D11; H24; H30; J24.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/99415

Schultz, T. Paul.

Wage-differentials by education of men and women are examined from African household surveys to suggest private wage returns to schooling. It is commonly asserted that returns are highest at primary school levels and decrease at secondary and postsecondary levels, whereas private returns in six African countries are today highest at the secondary and post secondary levels, and rates are similar for women as for men. The large public subsidies for postsecondary education in Africa, therefore, are not needed to motivate students to enroll, and those who have in the past enrolled in these levels of education are disproportionately from the better-educated families. Higher education in Africa could be more efficient and more equitably distributed if the...

Factors Influencing Job Choice among Agricultural Economics Professionals

Palavras-chave: Africa; Wage returns to schooling; Inequality; HIV; AIDS; Labor and Human Capital; 015; 055; J31; J24.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28481

McGraw, Katherine; Popp, Jennie S. Hughes; Dixon, Bruce L.; Newton, Doris J..

This article identifies factors that influence agricultural economics professionals’ job choice between academic and government employment. Respondents agreed that job responsibilities were the most important factor in choosing their current position. They also agreed that having a positive work environment, good salary, family time, adequate resources, and professional and social interaction were important job attributes. Proportionally more women than men regarded partner opportunities, nondiscrimination, time for child care, and supportive colleagues as very important attributes influencing their decisions. A binomial probit of respondents’ current job sector indicates significant job choice determinants include sector preference (academic or...

Tipo: Article

Palavras-chave: Academic and government agricultural economics professionals; Binomial probit; Job choice; Job preferences; Gender; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession; C25; J24; J43; J45.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/123779

Families, Human Capital, and Small Business: Evidence from the Characteristics of Business Owners Survey

Fairlie, Robert W.; Robb, Alicia.

Using data from the confidential and restricted-access Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO) Survey, we provide some suggestive evidence on the causes of intergenerational links in business ownership and the related issue of how having a family business background affects small business outcomes. Estimates from the CBO indicate that more than half of all business owners had a self-employed family member prior to starting their business. Conditional on having a self-employed family member, less than 50 percent of small business owners worked in that family member's business. In contrast, estimates from regression models conditioning on business ownership indicate that having a self-employed family member plays only a minor role in determining small...