The paper aims to explicitly determine the distribution of human capital across hierarchic educational stages along the transition process, and to analyse the determinants of its evolution. We apply optimal control principles in a model of endogenous growth with two successive stages of...

This paper provides an answer to the question of whether Europe will be able to reach its tertiary education target by 2020. Insights into the dynamics of future education attainment and areas for effective policy interventions in the long-run are highlighted. We model the dynamics behind...

This paper presents a simple model to examine the implication of credit market imperfections when considering the massive variation of agricultural labor productivity across countries. The development of credit markets enables more agents to acquire skills to work in non-agricultural sectors....

In this paper, we integrate the retirement deadline taking into account both labor demand and labor supply specificities. This approach reveals that firms' employment decisions play an active role in the early retirement decision. We show that, in a walrasian economy, social security reforms...

A PAYGO system may serve as insurance against not having children and as an enforcement device for ungrateful children who are unwilling to pay their parents a pension. In fact, the latter was Bismarck’s historic motive for introducing this system. It is true that the PAYGO system reduces the...

This study examines the link between government spending and economic growth in Nigeria over the last three decades (1977-2006) using time series data to analyze the Ram (1986) model. Three variants of Ram (1986) model were developed-regressing Real GDP on Private investment, Human capital...

This article summarises the recent literature on the relationship between inequality in wages and education for Portugal. The main conclusions are the following. First, Portu-gal is one of the OECD countries with lowest educational level. At the same time, re-turns to education are large, and...

In 1997, the French government put into effect a law that permanently exempted young French male citizens born after Jan 1, 1979 from mandatory military service while still requiring those born before that cutoff date to serve. This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to identify the...

An emerging body of literature examines the economic returns to quality of postsecondary education. This literature has predominantly focused on the returns to the most selective universities. However, less is known about the extent to which these gains are realized for the academically marginal...

Universities have come under increasing pressure to become key drivers of economic development in the age of the knowledge economy. Yet we know very little about the impact of university quality and scientific excellence on the probability of graduates finding jobs. This paper investigates the...