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From Farmers to Merchants: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish Economic History

Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi - Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) - 2002

Since the Middle Ages the Jews have been engaged primarily in urban, skilled occupations, such as crafts, trade, finance, and medicine. This distinctive occupational selection occurred between the seventh and the ninth centuries in the Muslim Empire and then it spread to other locations. We...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005233730

Do Better Schools Lead to More Growth? Cognitive Skills, Economic Outcomes, and Causation

Hanushek, Eric A.; Woessmann, Ludger - Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) - 2009

We investigate whether a causal interpretation of the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth is appropriate and whether cross-country evidence supports a case for the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008469720

Human Capital and the Future of Transition Economies

Spagat, Michael - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2002

Transition economies have an initial condition of high human capital relative to GDP per capita, giving them high growth potential. In the model, at a good equilibrium a large number of children of well-educated parents take advantage of their family backgrounds and invest substantially in their...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005124062

From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History

Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2006

From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring Jewish fathers to educate their sons. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history. First, the high...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005136751

Engineers, Innovative Capacity and Development in the Americas

Maloney, William F.; Caicedo, Felipe Valencia - Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) - 2014

Using newly collected national and sub-national data and historical case studies, this paper argues that differences in innovative capacity, captured by the density of engineers at the dawn of the Second Industrial Revolution, are important to explaining present income differences, and, in...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010790517

Gone with the Storm: Rainfall Shocks and Household Well-Being in Guatemala

Baez, Javier E.; Lucchetti, Leonardo; Genoni, Maria Eugenia - Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) - 2015

This paper investigates the causal consequences of Tropical Storm Agatha (2010) – the strongest tropical storm ever to strike Guatemala since rainfall records have been kept – on household welfare. The analysis reveals substantial negative effects, particularly among urban households. Per...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011149769

From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History

Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2006

From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring any Jewish father to educate his children. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this exogenous change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history....

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005788962

Child Labor and the Education of a Society

Bell, Clive; Gersbach, Hans - Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) - 2001

We examine economic growth, inequality and education when the wellspring of growth is the formation of human capital through a combination of the quality of child-rearing and formal schooling. The existence of multiple steady states is established, including a poverty trap, wherein children work...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005761977

Language and Labor Market Success

Isphording, Ingo E. - Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) - 2014

This article summarizes three different strands of the literature that address the labor market effects of language-related human capital. (1) A general importance is demonstrated in the empirical evidence on earnings and employment effects of literacy as the ability to productively use written...

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010959721

Allocation of Human Capital and Innovation at the Frontier: Firm-Level Evidence on Germany and the Netherlands

Bartelsman, Eric; Dobbelaere, Sabien; Peters, Bettina - Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) - 2013

This paper examines how productivity effects of human capital and innovation vary at different points of the … conditional productivity distribution. Our analysis draws upon two large unbalanced panels of 6,634 enterprises in Germany and 14 … are more dispersed in the Netherlands. In both countries, we observe non-linearities in the productivity effects of …

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010959824