Browsing by Subject "Human Capital"

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Open Access
Human capabilities versus human capital: gauging the value of education in developing countries
(Springer, 2006) Wigley, S.
The purpose of this study is to defend the view that education should be evaluated in terms of the capability to achieve valued functionings, rather than mental satisfaction or resources. In keeping with Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach we argue that mental satisfaction provides an inaccurate metric of well-being because of the phenomenon of adaptive preferences. Equally, resources cannot be used as a metric of well-being because of inequalities in the ability to convert income and commodities into valued functionings. Hence, interpreting education as a means to create human capital is also impoverished because it evaluates education solely in terms of the accumulation of resources. In order to provide evidence in support of the human capabilities approach we statistically examine the channels through which educational attainment affects the health functionings implied by life expectancy. Using panel data analysis for 35 developing countries for the years 1990, 1995 and 2000 we compare the health functionings (as indicated by life expectancy) that are achieved by the income growth generated by educational attainment, with the total health functionings that are achieved by educational attainment. We find that educational attainment (as indicated by average years of schooling) has a significant effect on life expectancy independently of its effect by way of income growth. A 1% increase in per capita income increases life expectancy by 0.073954% while a 1% increase in average years of schooling directly increases life expectancy by 0.055324%. Because it shows that income underestimates the health functionings achieved by educational attainment, our empirical findings lend support to the claim that the value of education should be measured in terms of the capability for functioning, rather than resources.
Open Access
The role of human capital in productivity spillovers from FDI : an empirical analysis on Turkish manufacturing firms
(2009) Köymen, Seda
This thesis studies whether the existence or magnitude of possible productivity spillover effects from FDI differs across domestic firms that possess different levels of human capital. The human capital as an absorptive capacity has been investigated in the macro literature by Borensztein et al. (1998) and Xu (2000). The aim of this analysis is to investigate their question at firm level. To test for this, a firm-level unbalanced panel data from Turkish manufacturing industry over the period 1990-2001 is used. First, firm-level total factor productivity (TFP) is calculated using the Levinsohn-Petrin methodology. Then, the evidence regarding the productivity spillovers from FDI is provided. The analysis is conducted using both level and growth of TFP as dependent variable. The results of this spillover analysis suggest that there are negative spillovers through forward linkages on the TFP level but not on the growth rate of TFP. On the other hand, only evidence of positive backward spillovers and negative horizontal spillovers are found for the growth of TFP. Finally, a deeper investigation of whether domestic firms with higher human capital benefit more from these spillovers is undertaken. In level regressions,results show that domestic firms benefit from FDI through backward linkages if they possess human capital under a certain level. In growth regressions, the domestic firms benefit from FDI through horizontal channel if they possess above a minimum threshold level of human capital.