In the knowledge-based society and in the creative economy towards which all the EU countries aspire, being also driven by the regulations of the European Commission through Europe 2020 Strategy, the human capital of a nation acquires new values, representing a powerful comparative advantage for...

Purpose – Trade liberalization could either exacerbate or ameliorate the incidence of child labour. This paper aims to examine the effect of trade liberalization through membership in the GATT/WTO on the incidence of child labour across countries and over time. The authors examine child labour...

In human capital intensive industries where it is difficult to contract upon the training effort of skilled agents a socially suboptimal level of training may occur. We show how partnership organisations can overcome this problem by tying human and financial capital. Partnerships are opaque so...

Until 1970, the New York Stock Exchange prohibited public incorporation of member firms. After the rules were relaxed to allow joint stock firm membership, investment-banking concerns organized as partnerships or closely-held private corporations went public in waves, with Goldman Sachs (1999)...

This paper opens a new perspective from which one can explain the presence of government intervention in education even in the absence of human capital externality. It argues that consumption externalities can provide rationale for government intervention in education. Within the context of...

This paper examines the effect of social spending in developing countries on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Existing studies on the race to the bottom in social services attempt to discern the extent to which FDI affects social expenditure. However, it remains an open question whether FDI is...

This paper studies the link between hourly wages and workers’ subjective assessments of how easy it would be to find another job as good as the present one, and how easy it would be for an employer to replace an employee. First, using high-quality data, I study the correlates of these two...

This paper constructs a simple, overlapping generations version of an R&D-based growth model à la Diamond (1965) and Jones (1995), and examines how an increase in old-age survival probability impacts purposeful R&D investment and long-run growth by affecting fertility and education decisions....

La universidad española ha crecido significativamente en recursos y resultados pero, como nuestra economía, tiene problemas de productividad y competitividad internacional que suscitan dudas sobre su funcionamiento y su contribución social y económica. El objetivo de esta obra es evaluar los...

This paper focuses on the role of human capital in attenuating the barriers that block firms from engaging in innovation activities. The paper distinguishes between firms facing deterring barriers to innovation (firms deterred from engaging in innovation activities) and firms confronting...