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The need for non-formal education (NFE), which does not result in a formal degree or certificate, is substantial as labour markets often require adult workers to take an initiative in advancing their job-related skills. Yet, NFE opportunities are more often pursued by high-income and high-skilled adults than their low-income and low-skilled counterparts. For this study, we used data from the 2012 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) for Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the US, to compare participation rates in NFE by medium/high and low-skilled adults. Additionally, to gain insights of adult education and training policies that promote NFE, international key informant interviews (n = 33) and document reviews were conducted. Findings include (a) as compared to high-skilled adults, low-skilled adults are less likely to participate in NFE (b) as compared to the US, low-skilled adults in Norway and the Netherlands are more likely to participate in NFE, and (c) NFE is often more acceptable to low-skilled adults, possibly due to previous negative experiences with formal education. These findings are especially relevant to the increased need for retraining and reskilling as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has negatively impacted low-skilled workers more than their higher skilled counterparts (OECD, 2020a).

Purpose: This study examines whether education in developing countries directly impacts their foreign income from the top export sector. Design/methodology/approach: As most developing countries follow developed nations to shape their development, this study assumes developing countries as education-follower and developed countries as education-leader countries. Considering selected countries from the South Asian Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and African countries as follower countries and Group of Seven (G7) as leader countries, this study employs Dumitrescu-Hurlin Granger non-causality tests. Findings: This study finds that education-follower countries' achievements do not directly impact foreign earnings from their leading export sectors. However, findings also confirm that leader countries have a bidirectional causal relationship between tertiary education and earnings from high technology exports. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study urging research-intensive education with comparative advantages in international trade. Using educational attainment on export earnings from the leading sector, findings support dependency theory in education is still existed.

This article revisits the Mincer earnings function and presents comparable estimates of the average monetary returns associated with an additional year of education across different regions worldwide. In contrast to the traditional Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method commonly employed in the literature, this study applied a cutting-edge approach known as Support Vector Regression (SVR), which belongs to the family of machine learning (ML) algorithms. SVR is specifically chosen to address the bias arising from underfitting inherent in OLS. The analysis focuses on recent data spanning from 2010 to 2018, ensuring temporal homogeneity across the examined regions. The findings reveal that each additional year of education, on average, yields a private rate of returns of 10.4%. Notably, Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits the highest returns to education at 17.8%, while Europe demonstrates the lowest returns at 7.2%. Moreover, higher education is associated with the highest returns across the regions, with a rate of 12%, whereas primary education yields returns of 10%. Interestingly, women generally experience higher returns than men, with rates of 10.6 and 10.1%, respectively. Over time, the returns to education exhibit a modest decline, decreasing at a rate of approximately 0.1% per year, while the average duration of education demonstrates an increase of 0.16 years per year (1% per year). The application of the state-of-the-art ML technique, SVR, not only improves the accuracy of estimates but also enhances predictive performance measures such as the coefficient of determination (R[superscript 2]) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) when compared to the OLS method. The implications drawn from these findings emphasize the need for expanding university education, as well as investments in primary education, along with significant attention toward promoting girls' education. These findings hold considerable importance for policymakers who are tasked with making informed decisions regarding education expenditure and the implementation of education financing programs.

This study demonstrates ways that geopolitics may interfere with the pursuit of global science. In particular, the study sought to understand the impact of the U.S. Department of Justice's China Initiative on the U.S. scientific community, especially among those of Chinese and other Asian descent. Based on a survey of about 2,000 scientists in top U.S. research universities, findings show a consistent pattern of neo-racism, neo-nationalism, and the consequences for future international collaborations and maintaining highly skilled talent. The findings show how neo-racism and neo-nationalism may be sabotaging the efforts of the U.S. to be globally competitive.

International higher education in many developed countries and more particularly in the United States and Australia has become a great source of revenue for their economies from students of the developing and underdeveloped countries (Least Development Countries). Money together with the mobility of international students from Least Development Countries to the developed world have created social inequality with no sustainable method for successful and sustainable internationalisation policies and agendas. This situation of inequality is created by a viciously interdependent circle formed by the erosion of monetary, human and linguistic capital. Calamities beyond human control including COVID-19 amplify social inequality due to the aforementioned erosion of capital. This article compares the international higher education scenes in the USA and Australia which have strong educational collaborations with a developing country like India. The piece uses extant literature in partnership with the technique of discourse analysis to provide a critical analysis of the politics of the existing internationalisation policies in international higher education and provides suggestions to deliver better internationalisation policies.

Do employers prioritize university prestige above an applicant's skills in the hiring process? To distinguish between the effect of human capital in the hiring process from the effect of the name of the graduating university--while controlling for networking effects--2,400 fictitious applications were submitted to IT and accounting jobs in the US, UK, and Australia. The resumes belonged to fictitious citizens, both female and male. For each sector of the labor market, two resumes were designed. One resume had a high skills match with the generic requirements of entry level jobs in each sector. A second resume had a low skills match with the same requirements. For each country, one high-ranked university and one non-high-ranked university were selected to signal prestige. The name of the graduating university and the sex of the applicant were randomly assigned on otherwise identical resumes. High skills match applications were 79 percent more likely to receive a callback than low skills match applications. University prestige and sex were not statistically significant predictors of callbacks. These findings suggest that human capital, and not university prestige, predicts callback outcomes in skill intensive sectors of the labor market for entry-level applicants with a bachelor's degree.

Purpose: This paper aims to understand the development track of skills mismatch research and discover the hidden internal connections between literature. Design/methodology/approach: The authors gathered data through scientometric quantitative analysis using CiteSpace. Specifically, this article applied basic analysis, journal cocitation analysis (JCA), author cocitation analysis (ACA) and document cocitation analysis (DCA), cluster analysis, citation burstness detection, scientific research cooperation analysis and coconcurrence analysis of keywords of 3,125 documents from Web of Science core collections for the period 2000-2020. Findings: Through the document cocitation analysis and the keywords' co-occurrence, this article identifies influential scholars, documents, research institutions, journals and research hotspots in research on the skills mismatch phenomenon. The results showed that the publications had ballooned, and the phenomenon has become an interdisciplinary research subject. The USA and Finland remain the main contributors, which is attributed to their high-yield institutions such as the University of Helsinki, the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Washington and so on. While the African continent lacks research on skills mismatch even with the continent's effort to overcome such a crucial issue. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of skills and educational mismatch issues to better understand the evolutionary trajectory of the collective knowledge over the past 20 years and highlight the areas of active pursuit. Research limitations/implications: The authors only used Web of Science core collection to collect data; however, they can added Scopus indexed database as well to extend the research trends and explore more new research hot topics to solve the skills mismatch phenomenon. Originality/value: The scientometric analysis is of great significance for identifying the potential relationship between the literature and investigating the knowledge evolution of skills mismatch research. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization are the giants who are mostly concerned of the mismatch skills phenomenon. Researchers can refer to this study to understand the status quo, gaps and research trends to deal with the skills mismatch issue.

To operationalize the extent to which firms place a strategic emphasis on human capital and human resource management (HRM), we draw on the strategy field's dominant logic theory and on the emerging literature on executive compensation for the heads of major firm functions, such as HRM. Specifically, we investigate whether the pay of human resource executives (HREs) relative to other members of top management teams (TMTs) is related to firm performance. After controlling for the endogeneity of HRE status as one of the highest paid executives on the TMT, we find in a comprehensive sample of the largest US firms that HRE relative pay is positively related to firm financial performance, specifically Tobin's Q. We also find that the relationship of HRE relative pay with Tobin's Q is stronger in relatively smaller and younger firms in our sample. The findings suggest that a strategic emphasis on human capital and HRM leads to higher firm value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chief Executive Officer's (CEO) are integral leaders of health care organisation. Over the last two decades in United States (US) hospitals, it has been noted that CEO turnover rates are increasing, and it was reported that the CEO turnover rates have augmented from 14% in 2008 to 18% in 2017 in the private sector. In Australia, it was discovered that during two years, 41 executives had 18 distinct positions. It has been highlighted that the increasing CEO turnover is a major issue for Australian and international health care organisations. Some of the negative consequences of CEO turnover include organisational instability, high financial costs, loss of human capital and adverse effects on staff morale and patient care. Objective: Our scoping review aimed to map and summarise the evidence associated with CEO turnovers in both health and non-health setting, and answer the following questions: 1. What are the reasons for CEO departure?, 2. What are the strategies to minimise CEO turnover? Results: A protocol explaining the objectives, inclusion criteria and methods for this scoping review were specified in advance and published. This scoping review included 17 studies (13 health and 4 non-health setting) published over a 31-year period that investigated and described the increasing CEO turnover rates. All 17 studies identified causes of CEO turnover along with certain studies identifying facilitators of CEO retention. We classified CEO's departure reasons into three major themes: organizational, performance, and personal. Organisational factors include CEO departures due to issues within the organisation, performance factors include issues with CEO's work and personal factors captures personal reasons for CEO's leaving their job. Conclusion: CEOs are under immense pressure to deliver good results and drive growth while satisfying the interests of internal and external stakeholders. There are various reasons for CEO's departure however the most common factor identified is organisational. Contribution of paper statement: What is already known Causes and consequences of CEO turnover in both health and non-health settings. What this paper adds Three main factors associated with CEO turnover such as organisational, performance and personal factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of college tuition on student debt and human capital accumulation. We exploit data from a random sample of undergraduate students in the United States and implement a research design that instruments for realized tuition with relatively large changes to the advertised tuition of students who enrolled at the same school in different cohorts. We find that $5,000 in higher tuition causally reduces the probability of graduating with a graduate degree by 3.1 percentage points and increases student debt by $1,480. Higher tuition also leads to a decline in mortgage balances and an increase in credit card delinquencies. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job automation is a topical issue in a technology-driven labor market. However, greater amounts of human capital (e.g., often measured by education, and information-processing skills, including adult literacy) are linked with job security. A knowledgeable and skilled labor force better resists unemployment and/or rebounds from job disruption brought on by job automation. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to advance understanding of the association between educational attainment and literacy, and job automation risk. Using the 2012/2014/2017 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data, survey-weighted linear regression was used to model the risk of job automation as a function of education, and literacy proficiency. Higher educational attainment (college or higher vs. less than high school: b = −18.23, p <.05) and greater literacy proficiency (score 0–500 points: b = −.038, p <.05) were associated with a decrease in job automation risk among the U.S. workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the National Survey of College Graduates, this study examines the return to pre‐ and post‐migration human capital of high‐skilled immigrants in the United States to provide an empirical evaluation of their skill transferability. I find that, on average, high‐skilled immigrants exhibit no wage return to foreign work experience, yet they demonstrate a relatively substantial return to foreign education. Delving into the heterogeneity across gender, occupation, and entry visa categories reveals the subsequent insights: female immigrants transfer less foreign experience and education than males; STEM immigrants are more adept at transferring foreign work experience than their non‐STEM counterparts; temporary work visa holders exhibit a heightened ability to transfer work experience, while green card and dependent visa holders have limited transferability of foreign work experience. Lastly, English proficiency is positively associated with the transferability of work experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational regulation is a labor market institution that has received a growing amount of attention. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the relationship between occupational credentials and unemployment duration in the United States. Thus, we propose a random search model to explain differences in unemployment duration resulting from heterogeneous effects from licenses and certification. Our model predicts that an occupational credential with a stronger signaling/human capital effect results in a shorter individual unemployment duration. To estimate the relationship between occupational credentials and spells of unemployment, we perform a survival analysis using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for the years 2013–2019. We find that both licensing and certification are associated with reductions in unemployment spells for Black males that are similar in magnitude. Our results provide some suggestive guidance to policymakers since certification is less costly and not mandatory like occupational licensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the effects of automation on the future of work have received considerable attention, little research has been conducted on the costs of this technological transformation for different populations of workers. This article makes an important contribution as one of the first to analyze the intersectional effects of workforce automation across race and gender in the United States. Multilevel survey data models are employed using two distinct measures of automation job displacement risk for over 1.4 million Americans across 385 occupations. This research demonstrates that the intersection of race and gender matters for individual automation risks. Education, age, disability, and nativity are also significant. These findings indicate that labor market outcomes of job automation will be based not only on differences in human capital but critically on socially constructed identities as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This quantitative study is designed to determine the impact of online proctoring software in graduate courses. The researchers compared the final grades of two groups of online graduate students who were taught by professors who had online exams before and after the university implemented proctoring software. Essentially the only difference between the groups was the use and nonuse of proctoring software. The overall sample in this study were 426 students in six different online graduate nursing courses at a medium-sized, public university in the United States. The findings showed the implementation of online proctoring software had a statistically significant impact on the students’ course grade when all the graduate courses were regressed together. The authors also regressed the data using independent human capital variables (i.e. male/female, full/part-time status, and cumulative GPA). Student cumulative GPA also proved statistically significant for the group of graduate nursing courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, countries have been making intensive efforts to alleviate the burden on the environment and to make environmental conditions sustainable. In this context, our study aims to investigate the long-term impact of renewable energy consumption (REC) and human capital (HC) by considering the load capacity factor (LCF). We also investigate the long-term impact of economic growth (Y) and non-renewable energy consumption (NREC) on the LCF. In this context, we analyze annual data for the U.S. for the period 1965–2018 using the newly developed augmented ARDL (AARDL) approach. The long-term empirical results show the following. i) Increases in Y negatively affect LCF and deteriorate environmental quality. ii) Increases in NREC negatively affect LCF and accelerate the deterioration of environmental quality. iii) REC has no significant impact on environmental quality. iv) Increases in HC support the improvement of environmental quality. The empirical results show that contrary to expectations, renewable energy consumption does not have a significant impact on environmental quality in the U.S., whereas human capital is an important factor in improving environmental quality. In this context, US policymakers should pave the way for more investment in eco-friendly renewable energy investments and human capital to establish sustainable environmental quality. Policymakers should also take steps to reduce the use of fossil fuels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US government response to the coronavirus pandemic has prompted renewed debate about the size and structure of the welfare state. Particular attention has been paid to prenatal and early childhood policy, domains in which the US safety net is less robust than those of its peer countries. Contra claims that the so-called care economy constitutes a sharp break with the neoliberal consensus, this article argues that the shift in social policy focus toward early life is consistent with changes in economic ideas about the best environment in which to grow "human capital": the economization of early life. Building on insights about "critical periods" of development drawn from diverse fields including epigenetics and neurobiology, economists estimate that human capital gains are greatest when "investments in people" occur before the age of five. This article traces the history of how this research was brought to the attention of federal policy makers in the United States. While much human capital–focused social policy traditionally placed the burden of risk on the private family (e.g., with student loan debt or health insurance), in recent years, economists have instead argued that social programs dedicated to early childhood development are more "efficient" sources of public investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends a canonical model of intergenerational human capital investment to a geographic context to study the role of migration in influencing income mobility in the United States. The main result is that migration is considerably influential in shaping the high rates of economic mobility observed among children from low-wage areas, with human capital investment behavioral responses being important to consider. Equalizing school quality across locations does more to reduce interstate inequality in income mobility than equalizing skill prices, and policies that attempt to decrease human capital flight from low-wage areas via cash transfers are unlikely to be cost-effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the link between electrification and the rise in female labour force participation (LFP), and presents theoretical and empirical evidence showing that electrification triggered a rise in female LFP by increasing market opportunities for skilled women. I formalize my theory in an overlapping generations model and find that my mechanism explains one quarter of the rise in female LFP during the rollout of electricity in the U.S. (1880–1940), and matches the slow decline in female home production hours during this period. I then present micro-evidence supporting my theory using newly digitized data on the early electrification of the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between refugee investments in human capital and short‐run economic outcomes may influence the extent to which refugees invest in human capital that is associated with positive future economic mobility. Using data from the Annual Survey of Refugees from 2016 and 2017 we assess the relationship between recent investments in human capital and hourly wages for employed refugees in the United States. Results suggest that recent job training has a positive effect on hourly wages. In contrast, enrollment in English classes and educational programmes have no short‐term positive effects on hourly wages. When combined with the pressure resettled refugees experience to find employment quickly, these results suggest that the lack of short‐term wage benefits from English language or educational courses may dissuade refugees from sufficiently investing in the amount of English language or education necessary to promote positive long‐term economic mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space weather, a natural hazard, can adversely impact human technological assets. High‐voltage electric power transmission grids constitute one of the most critical technological systems vulnerable to space weather driven geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). One of the major challenges pertaining to the study of GICs over the continental United States has been the availability of GIC measurements, which are critical for validation of geoelectric field and power flow models, for example. In this study, we analyze GIC measurements collected at 17 Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI) SUNBURST transformer locations across the United States for which a GIC value of 10 A or greater was recorded. This data set includes 52 individual geomagnetic storms with Kp index 6 and above during the period from 2010 to 2021. The analysis confirms that there is a good correlation between the number of geomagnetic storms per year and the number of recorded GIC events. Our results also show that about 76% of the top 17 GIC events are associated with the storm main phase, while only 24% are attributed to storm sudden commencements. In addition, it is shown, for the first time, that mid‐latitude positive bays can cause large GICs over the continental United States. Finally, this study shows that the largest measured GIC event in the data set was associated with a localized intense dB/dt structure, which could be attributed to substorm activity. Plain Language Summary: Space weather, a natural hazard, can adversely impact human technological assets. High‐voltage electric power transmission grids constitute one of the most critical technological systems vulnerable to induced currents produced by enhanced space weather conditions. One of the major challenges pertaining to the study of these induced currents over the continental United States has been the lack of measurements. In this study, we analyze induced current measurements collected at 17 high‐voltage power transformer locations across the United States for which a value of 10 A or greater was recorded during the period from 2010 to 2021. The analysis confirms a good correlation between the number of geomagnetic storms per year and the number of recorded induced current events. The results also show that about 76% of the top 17 induced current events are associated with the storm main phase, while only 24% are attributed to storm sudden commencements. In addition, it is shown for the first time that mid‐latitude positive bays can cause large induced currents over the continental United States. Finally, this study also shows that the largest measured GIC event in the data set was associated with a localized intense dB/dt structure, which could be attributed to substorm activity. Key Points: We analyze geomagnetically induced current (GIC) measurements collected under the EPRI SUNBURST project from across the United States and CanadaAbout 76% of the top 17 GIC events occur during main phase (MP) of geomagnetic storms, while 24% during sudden storm commencementFor the first time it is directly shown that mid‐latitude positive bays can cause large GICs at US locations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the unstable work environment brought about by high levels of turnover and employee burnout, many firms have sought fresh human capital to fill critical roles. The strain of having to complete job duties in an understaffed environment made remaining employees feel as though they are not being paid enough to do more work for the same pay. However, incoming workers required higher wages to match market demands. Owing to the existence of pay secrecy policies having the potential of making existing workers feel ostracized because elements of seniority, loyalty, and distrust of their employers, a cycle of cynicism and deeper senses of ostracism likely are occurring. With the support of the literature surrounding workplace ostracism, pay secrecy policies, and cynicism, we sampled general workers in the United States (n = 372) to determine if cynicism had the potential to further impact the negative relationship of perceptions of pay secrecy policies and workplace ostracism. Our findings suggest cynicism moderates the proposed relationship at average and high levels indicating that cynicism will buffer feelings of ostracism in an environment where there are negative perceptions of pay secrecy. We discuss how our findings add to the literature through being the first study to explore our hypothesized relationship. Furthermore, we add to understanding of how the aging workforce likely is experiencing cynicism and ostracism associated with pay secrecy policies. Beyond discussing our findings, we give suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is often promoted as the path to overcoming the burdens of bureaucratic organizations and fostering improved service to the public. In a moment where governments face dynamic administrative and policy challenges, there is great need for leveraging innovative ideas from public sector employees. What is less clear are which factors of employee human capital correlate with feeling encouraged to innovate. We test how three types of human capital influence innovation: organization level, industry specific, and individual specific human capital. We also explore whether there are differences in feeling encouraged to innovate linked to education, training, and demographics such as gender, race, and age. Using survey responses from 2,191 public procurement officers from various levels of government in the United States, we find human capital components including experience, and age correlate with feeling encouraged to innovate, though not always in expected ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing reliance on student loans and repayment difficulties have raised concerns of a student debt crisis in the United States, but little is known about the effects of student borrowing on human capital and long-run financial well-being. We use variation induced by recent expansions in federal loan limits combined with administrative data-sets to identify the effects of increased access to student loans on credit-constrained students' educational attainment, earnings, debt, and loan repayment. Increased student loan availability raises student debt and improves degree completion, later-life earnings, and student loan repayment, while having no effect on homeownership or other types of debt. (JEL G51, I22, I23, I26, J24) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We undertake an assessment of our two decades of research on financial literacy, building on our empirical research and theoretical work casting financial knowledge as a form of investment in human capital. We also draw on recent data to determine who is the most--and least--financially savvy in the United States, and we highlight the similarity of our results in other countries. A number of convincing studies is now available, from which we draw conclusions about the effects and consequences of financial illiteracy, and what can be done to fill these gaps. We conclude by offering our thoughts on implications for teaching, policy, and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sustainable food system is a fundamental requirement for the ongoing functioning and growth of society. However, despite the critical importance of the food system from both economic and social perspectives, there are several political, environmental, and human capital issues which represent barriers to sustainable production. For example, in the United States, the need for more production capacity to feed a growing population is juxtaposed with a shrinking and aging food system workforce. The nexus of such fundamentally opposed issues represents a situation in which technical solutions may be insufficient. Using a three-round Delphi process with an expert panel, a total of 106 unique leadership competencies or behaviors were identified. The resulting behaviors and competencies were then thematically analyzed using the constant comparative method. The proposed food systems leadership model, named Issue Leadership, includes 39 subthemes and 7 primary themes. The primary themes include action; change; communication; critical thinking, strategic planning and visioning; interpersonal traits and characteristics; leadership skills; and leadership processes. This study establishes the unique context that agriculture and food systems represent and the necessity for leadership models that are competency- and practice-based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a life‐course measure of the legal pattern that accounts for the overall legal pattern over the lifetime of migration and explores the two main pathways to labour market outcomes: selecting into legal patterns associated with different levels of labour market outcomes and realising different labour market outcomes within each pattern. Results suggest that labour market outcomes depend on which legal patterns migrants end up with instead of what they realise within each pattern. Particularly, migrants with more human capital and better social capital select into legal patterns associated with better labour market outcomes, but they do not realise better labour market outcomes given the legal patterns they experienced. From the dynamic perspective, the economic integration of migrants depends on legal patterns. Migrants in legal patterns that initiate with temporary resident status experience economic integration over time. The growth rate is larger for the patterns that involve a transition in legal status. This paper makes important contributions to the literature. First, it identifies holistic legal patterns that account for the legal status over migrants' entire migration history. Second, it sheds light on the selection into different legal patterns and highlights selection as the major process in explaining migrants' labour market outcomes. Third, it shows how legal patterns, jointly shaped by initial legal status and legal transition, determine migrants' economic integration. Finally, the inclusion of temporary resident status, beyond the illegal–legal dichotomy, enriches our understanding of how liminal legality over the lifetime of migration shapes labour market outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades in the United States, a powerful consensus has emerged around the value of bi-/multilingualism as human capital, including as an advantage for individuals on the labor market. In this article, I consider how the advantage that Spanish-English bilingualism affords some Latinxs on the labor market might be contested, especially by whites who feel disadvantaged by employers' preferences for bilingual workers. I explore data from an online petition opposing the use of bilingualism in hiring decisions. Drawing on insights from critical discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, and the sociology of race, I analyze the discursive strategies that petition signers use to contest the economic advantages afforded by Spanish-English bilingualism. I show that signatories draw on a set of strategies that includes reproducing a naturalized one nation, one language ideology; constructing English as equal opportunity language; decommodifying Spanish; and racializing Spanish and its speakers. My analysis suggests that the apparent economic advantages afforded by Spanish-English bilingualism are a salient target for white racial resentment. Thus, I argue that discussions centering around bi-/multilingualism as human capital should consider how neoliberalism and aggrieved whiteness both, in different ways, undermine the labor market advantages bilingualism offers some Latinxs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper argues that the neoliberal consensus about education finance has broken down due to growing economic inequality. First, I use a comparative historical analysis of political alliances to examine patterns of world trade and nations' policies for economic and educational development since World War II. The United States emphasized STEM-collegiate preparation for all students, while most countries continued the dual emphasis on technical-tertiary and higher education. Educational policy in the US and Pacific region also shifted towards a reliance on markets and student loans resulting in worsening economic inequality in access. Nations with dual technical and academic pathways in secondary and postsecondary education systems expand college enrollment rates more rapidly than the US. They also experience class conflict between the working–middle class and the new technological elite. Next, I examine how education policy shifted from national planning aligned with public funding to market-based incentives for institutional development, further exposing gaps in opportunity within nations. Finally, recognizing the variations in systemic causes of inequality, I argue that governments, education agencies, and civic activists can best promote equity by organizing to address barriers to opportunity for groups left behind in the wake of withering neoliberal education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the U.S. President Joe Biden administration has rolled out some policy changes to facilitate options for foreign nationals and employers in addressing labor shortages. Topics discussed include sponsoring individuals with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for long-term employment, utilizing the PERM labor certification process to sponsor TPS employees and exploring other categories of workers eligible for green card sponsorship through PERM labor certification.

We study the role of denominational competition in the expansion of higher education in the nineteenth-century United States. We document that nearly all colleges established in this period were affiliated with a Christian denomination. Empirical analysis reveals a robust positive relationship between the denominational fragmentation of the county and the number of colleges established. We take several steps to rule out competing explanations and also highlight the causal channel by utilizing two historical case studies. We conclude by estimating a model of school choice and showing that students exhibited strong preferences to attend same-denominational colleges in terms of willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-travel. Therefore, we argue that religious diversity softened the extent of tuition competition between institutions and precipitated an "excess" entry of schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Invasive birds cause damage to economies, natural resources, and human safety across the globe. In the United States, rock doves (Columba livia), Eurasian collared doves (Streptopelia decaocto), rose-ringed parakeets (Psittacula krameri), monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus), common mynas (Acridotheres tristis), European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), and house sparrows (Passer domesticus) are among the invasive and often harmful small-bodied birds inhabiting periurban habitats. The destructive nature of these species warrants a review of methods to reduce or eradicate populations along with methods to reduce damage when population eradication cannot be achieved. We reviewed damage management literature from these species' native and introduced ranges. Additionally, we used the behavior and ecology of these species to inform tool recommendations and potential efficacy under various damage scenarios, while being sensitive to cultural preferences and location of implementation (residential, commercial, and agricultural). Although this review focuses on invasive birds in the United States, it is applicable to other pest species across the globe. Our review highlights areas where research is needed to validate promising damage management methods (lethal control, fertility control, habitat modification, exclusionary methods, frightening devices, and chemical repellents). Where birds are invasive, integrated pest management techniques should focus on eradication or population reduction (toxicants, shooting, and trapping) to keep populations at levels where nonlethal tools can reduce damage. We acknowledge the efficacy of an eradication campaign depends on biological, environmental, and economic factors, along with social license for lethal removal. We recommend integrated pest management strategies including lethal and nonlethal tools specific to the damage problem. Sustained efforts to reduce invasive populations should be used along with integrated deterrent strategies for short-term damage relief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study extends and reinterprets Roback's general spatial equilibrium model by casting it within the comprehensive wealth framework. Considering the explicit spatial effects among regions, the analysis refines estimates of the contribution of natural, built, social, cultural, and human capital to residents' wealth. We develop an empirical model and apply it to secondary data from 3109 counties in the United States. Our analysis provides a means of partitioning the sources of wealth in traditionally measured financial wealth and various types of amenities, while avoiding double counting the values of natural and publicly provided assets. Our findings indicate that rising property values are not simply an outcome of limited supply but are often an indicator of rising demand for improving amenities, suggesting different strategies for property and income taxation policy. There are apparently differences between the value of amenities in metro and non-metro counties. Our model explicitly estimates the spatial spillover and feedback effects of policy changes on local land values and wages. It also measures the differences in determinants of asset values and wages in metro from non-metro counties in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether working long hours alters the motherhood earnings penalty in the context of the United States. The author uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979–2014) to model the annual earnings penalty mothers incur per child in the United States. The results support that working long hours (50+ hours per week) reduces the negative effect of motherhood on earnings for white women. Once we control for human capital and labour supply, however, there is no difference in the effect of children on earnings between full-time workers and overworkers. For Black full-time workers and overworkers, having an additional child has little effect on earnings. The findings suggest that although overwork appears to attenuate the earnings penalty for white mothers, white mothers who work long hours exhibit a smaller penalty because they already have high levels of human capital and supply a great amount of labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic and the mandated cessation of surgical procedures for a substantial portion of the 2020 year placed tremendous strain, both clinically and financially, on the health-care system in the United States. As a surgical specialty that accounts for nearly a quarter of all hospital net income, the revenue recovery of orthopaedic service lines (OSLs) is of particular importance to the financial recovery of their broader health-care institutions. In this American Orthopaedic Association (AOA) symposium report, the OSL leaders from 4 major academic medical institutions explain and reflect on their approaches to address their revenue deficits. Cost-reduction strategies, such as tightening budgets, adopting remote-work models, and limiting costs of human capital, were vital to stabilizing departmental finances at the onset of the pandemic, while strategies that focused on expanding surgical volume, such as those that improve efficiency in clinical and surgical settings, were important in growing revenue once elective procedures resumed. Institutional policy, payer administrative procedures, and the overall context of an ongoing public health crisis all placed limitations on recovery efforts, but engaging relevant stakeholders and working with available resources helped OSLs overcome these limitations. Due to clear strategic actions that were taken to address their deficits, each OSL represented in this AOA symposium saw substantial improvement in its year-end financial performance compared with its financial status at the end of the period of mandatory cessation of elective surgical cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Journal of Emerging Economies & Policy is the property of JOEEP: Journal of Emerging Economies & Policy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Organizations tout the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship. Yet, when hiring it remains unclear how they evaluate entrepreneurial human capital—namely, job candidates with founder experience. How hiring firms evaluate this experience—and especially how this evaluation varies by entrepreneurial success and failure—reveals insights into the structures and processes within organizations. Organizations research points to two perspectives related to the evaluation of founder experience: Former founders may be advantaged, due to founder experience signaling high-quality capabilities and human capital, or disadvantaged, due to concerns related to fit and commitment. To identify the dominant class of mechanisms driving the evaluation of founder experience, it is important to consider how these evaluations differ, depending on whether the founder's venture failed or succeeded. To isolate demand-side mechanisms and hold supply-side factors constant, we conducted a field experiment. We sent applications varying the candidate's founder experience to 2,400 software engineering positions in the United States at random. We find that former founders received 43% fewer callbacks than nonfounders and that this difference is driven by older hiring firms. Further, this founder penalty is greatest for former successful founders, who received 33% fewer callbacks than former failed founders. Our results highlight that mechanisms related to concerns about fit and commitment, rather than information asymmetry about quality, are most influential when hiring firms evaluate former founders in our context. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.1592. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology forecasting is an important and critical issue that determines the starting point of planning and is considered as a management tool directly related to the future. In the previous research items, the development of renewable energy technologies was of concern. Moreover, due to the increasing need of countries to produce electricity and facing the lack of resources, this research focuses on forecasting photovoltaic technology. Accordingly, in this paper, for technological research in the field of solar energy, the patents extracted from one of the most famous renewable energy databases in the United States (US patent database) between 200 and 2020 were examined. Next, research gaps were analyzed by using the artificial neural network clustering method and also by analyzing covered and uncovered compounds. The results show that in the future, photovoltaic technology research will move towards the third generation of technology (organic materials) as well as focus on environmental parameters and their effects on the performance of photovoltaic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the persistent effects of eliminating tariffs on Mexican imports, following the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), on Americans' human capital investment. We leverage quasi‐experimental changes in tariffs on Mexican imports across birth cohorts and within states. We show that NAFTA increases the probability of ever attending college and earning a degree. These results, however, mask important heterogeneous effects within the sample. We find white Americans drive these positive effects. In contrast, the educational attainment of racial and ethnic minorities, especially men, shrank under NAFTA, decreasing their probability of graduating from high school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the formation process of noncognitive skills by examining the determinants of a host of personality traits. Using data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), for individuals in larger families (three or more children), we find having a same‐sex sibling leads to improved long‐run noncognitive skills and positive personality traits. The latter result is driven entirely by females. We examine potential mechanisms by exploring the links between parental investment and sibling interactions. The results could possibly speak to public actions to enhance child development and human capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost all countries worldwide closed schools at the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis. I document that schooling time dropped on average by −55% in the United States and −45% in Germany from the onset of the crisis to the summer of 2021. In the United States, schools were closed longer in richer than in poorer areas, while in Germany the regional variation is much smaller. However, Germany exhibited substantial variation by grade level, with a strong U-shaped pattern that implies that children attending middle school faced the longest closures. A structural model of human capital accumulation predicts that the US school closures on average lead to a reduction of life-time earnings of –1.8% for the affected children. While the overall losses are likely somewhat smaller in Germany, the socio-economic gradient in the losses could be larger than in the United States, leading to increased inequality and decreased intergenerational mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I study whether human capital investments are based on local rather than national demand, using two positive and two negative shocks with differential local effects: the dot-com crash, the fracking boom, the 2008 financial crisis, and the shock making Delaware a financial headquarters. I find impacts on the share of sector-relevant degrees awarded following these shocks, on average across the United States. However, universities in areas more exposed to sectoral shocks experience greater changes in sector-relevant majors. Differential impacts on major choice at the most exposed universities account for 15–45 percent of the overall national effect on sector-relevant degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational credentials provide an additional—and, at times, alternative—path other than traditional academic degrees for individuals to increase productivity and demonstrate their abilities and qualifications to employers. In the United States, these credentials typically take the form of licenses and certifications. Although a critical part of the workforce landscape, the literature on the returns to credentials is inadequate, with prior research typically relying on Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions which do not sufficiently control for selection. Using questions that identify credential receipt from the 2015 and 2016 United States' Current Population Surveys, we construct an instrumental variable of local peer influence using the within-labor market credential rate of individuals sharing the same sociodemographic characteristics, while controlling for the same group's average wages and a suite of demographic and geographic controls. We use this instrument in a marginal treatment effects estimator, which allows for estimation of the average treatment effect and determines the direction of selection, and we estimate the effects of credentials on labor market outcomes. We find large, meaningful returns in the form of increased probability of individual employment, an effect which is concentrated primarily among women. The effect of having a credential on log wages is higher for those in the sub-baccalaureate labor market, suggesting the potential role of occupational credentials as an alternative path to marketable human capital and a signal of skills in the absence of a bachelor's degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]