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 investigates the relationship between per capita human capital investment and the fertility rate. In the first part of the article we analyze a theoretical model with endogenous birth rate in which we do not make any assumption on how fertility directly affects per capita human...

University of York Beijing Normal University The efficiency of the process of investment in human capital through education is of considerable importance both to the individuals involved and to the wider economy. The paper develops an analytical framework in which issues of the efficiency of...

This paper incorporates the concept of real option into a modified Harris–Todaro model to investigate the relationship between higher education and unemployment rates. We found that the real option value of waiting to invest in graduate school education will decrease when the expected wage...

Applying a financial assets approach, we analyze the returns and earnings risk of investments into different types of human capital. Even though the returns from investing in human capital are extensively studied, little is known about the properties of the returns to different types of human...

The outcome of pursuing an upper or post-secondary education degree is uncertain. A student might not complete a chosen degree for a number of reasons, such as insufficient academic preparation or financial constraints. Thus, when considering whether to invest in post-secondary education,...

As an alternative to traditional academic schooling, vocational schooling in South Africa may serve as a safety valve for students encountering difficulty in the transition from school to work. Yet if ineffective, vocational schooling could also be a sinkhole, offering little chance for success...

A substantial fraction of a worker's time at work goes to acquiring human capital. This paper explicitly considers on-the-job human capital accumulation from the perspective of time invested for acquiring skills and learning by doing in an RBC model and shows that the inability to account for...

We explore how human capital investment of a child is affected by the number and the gender of his/her siblings. We test for two alternative explanations : competition for scarce resources versus direct interactions between siblings. We provide an empirical application using Brazilian data.