Search

Vietnam's economy and education system have had remarkable success in recent decades, yet there are concerns about the declining returns to higher education since 2008. We document this decline in returns to higher education and propose four hypotheses to explain it. Analysis of the VLSS/VHLSS and LFS data provides little evidence for three of four hypotheses. The fourth hypothesis is that changes in the demand for highly educated labor in Vietnam, perhaps due to recent changes in foreign direct investment inflows, rather than the labor supply, are perhaps the most important determinant of the returns to education across different levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the concept of “investment in human capital”, presents a theoretical and instru-mental interpretation of the main components of human capital. The current assessment methods and indicators that characterize the effectiveness of investments in human capital are summarized. Also, a comprehensive and critical analysis of the current methodological aspects for assessing the effectiveness of investments in human capital was made. As the main structural component of human capital, a special place is given to education, which is considered as a property in the form of professional features and a self-increasing value based on an increase in the productivity of an employee, and, accordingly, is com-bined with an increase in wages. The creation of a methodology for assessing the economic efficiency of investments in education at the macroeconomic level is based on a comparison of public investment in education and the average salary in the country. The average salary is considered as a productive indica-tor of the effectiveness of investments in education. The money that is spent on educating the growing generation will in the foreseeable future determine the degree of education of the population of the state, and in turn, its competitive advantage in the world community. The proposed model for evaluating the effectiveness of investments in education is simple and convenient, it is able to link the efficiency of the company and the cost of human capital. The article shows the results of assessing the effectiveness of investments in the implementation of the State Program for the Development of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2020 – 2025. The analysis of statistical data for Kazakhstan also shows the existence of a close relationship between the remuneration of employees and the volume of invest-ment in education.

Copyright of Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration is the property of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University 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.)

Penelitian ini ditujukan untuk mengetahui kelayakan dan tingkat pengembalian investasi pendidikan alumni Prodi Hukum Unpad dan Unisba. Pendekatan Penelitian yang digunakan adalah kuantitatif, dengan metoda peneltian deskriptif-komparatif menggunakan teknik pengambilan sampel total sampling. Sumber data dalam penelitian adalah data primer dan data sekunder. Teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan angket, wawancara , observasi dan dokumentasi. Data yang terkumpul kemudian dihitung dan dianalisis menggunakan analisis deskriptif dan analisis tingkat pengembalian investasi atau rate of return on invesment. Adapun metode perhitungan yang digunakan dalam analisis rate of return adalah Net Present Value(NPV) atau Discounted Cash Flow, Internal rate of return (IRR) dan Uji Perbandingan Dua Rata-Rata Sample Independent Sample Test (T-test). Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan, bahwa investasi yang dilakukan alumni di Prodi Hukum dapat dikatakan layak. Di samping itu, Perbandingan antara Prodi hukum Unpad dan Uninus tingkat pengembalian investasi alumni berbeda berdasarkan masa studi dan lamanya bekerja.

The current study aims to assess the effectiveness of e-learning in compliance with the new biosafety recommendations in dentistry in the context of COVID-19 applied to the clinical staff of a dental school in Brazil. A quasi-experimental epidemiological study was carried out by means of a structured, pre-tested online questionnaire, applied before and after an educational intervention, using an e-learning format. After data collection, statistical tests were performed. A total of 549 members of the clinical staff participated in the study in the two collection phases, with a return rate of 26.9%. After the e-learning stage, a reduction was found in the reported use of disposable gloves, protective goggles, and surgical masks. The course had no impact on the staff's knowledge concerning the proper sequence for donning PPE and showed 100% effectiveness regarding proper PPE doffing sequence. Knowledge about avoiding procedures that generate aerosols in the clinical setting was improved. Despite the low rate of return, it can be concluded that online intervention alone was ineffective in significantly improving learning about the new clinical biosafety guidelines. Therefore, the use of hybrid teaching and repetitive training is highly recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper seeks to present the concept for the application of the principle of ‘Caveat Venditor’ or ‘Seller Beware’ in Higher Education and Healthcare sectors in India. Simply, this principle imposes a greater responsibility on the sellers themselves for the goods and services that they sell. This note presents the need for implementing the ‘Caveat Venditor’ principle to the two important service sectors in India, i.e., higher education and healthcare. In terms of cost, there has been a steady and steep rise in cost of both higher education and healthcare in India over the last decade. It is important to note that despite the steep rise in the cost of both higher education and healthcare, there has been no corresponding improvement in the quality of these services. While the ROI (Return on Investment) for students in India continues to be extremely low, quality of healthcare in India is still not up to the mark and lack of accountability from these service providers ensures that this trend continues. In view of the importance and spectacular growth potential of these two service sectors in India, coupled with the non-commensurate improvement in quality/outcomes/accountability of these services, the time is right to examine if the application of the principle of ‘Caveat Venditor’ is the only solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The increasing rate at which individuals, especially, females in Ghana are seeking higher education calls for an estimation of the returns to schooling and education in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach: The study employs the Mincer equation to a representative cross-sectional micro-data from Ghana using OLS and instrumental variable (IV) methodologies. The paper uses spouse's education as instruments in the IV estimation. Findings: Return to schooling was found to be higher for females than males, likewise, membership of an old student associations and location of the household. Returns to education increases as the level of education rises whilst the rate of returns initially increases but fall as labour market experience rises. The study also found that the rates of return to education were higher for Christian, followed by Muslim and believers of other lesser-known religion in Ghana. Research limitations/implications: Return to schooling was found to be higher for females than males. Likewise, individuals who are members of an old student association and are in urban areas were found to have a higher return to schooling than individuals who are not members of an old student association and are in rural areas. Returns to education increases as the level of education rises whilst the rate of returns initially increases but fall as labour market experience rises. The study also found that the rates of return to education were higher for Christian, followed by Muslim and believers of other lesser-known religion in Ghana. Practical implications: Wage determination process is different for males and females, across religion and residency. The higher returns to schooling for females imply education is a good investment for women and girls and should be a development priority. Social implications: The higher returns to schooling for females imply an investment in girl's education should be a development priority. Originality/value: The paper extends the existing literature by focussing on the role of religion, old student's association (alma mater) and gender on the differential earning returns to schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Potential pharmacy students need a financial frame of reference to compare alternative fields of study or even determine if studying is financially worthwhile.Objective: Estimate the rate of return to a pharmacy education investment in the U.S.Methods: A model is used to estimate the rate of return to a pharmacy education. It is formulated using exclusively present values (i.e., dollars at 2019 prices). Several assumptions are made regarding the individual getting the education, the costs incurred, the amount borrowed, and the benefits derived. The robustness of the model is tested using sensitivity analysis and the rate of return is recalculated each time.Results: The estimated real rate of return to a pharmacy education investment in the U.S., devoid of inflation and under the assumptions initially postulated in the model, is 4.89%. The nominal rate of return is 6.44%. Post-estimation sensitivity analysis shows that the real rate of return is relatively inelastic with respect to changes in eight inputs considered, thus indicating robustness in the results of the model.Conclusions: The real rate of return estimated here establishes pharmacy as a financially viable occupation for young individuals possessing the aptitude and commitment to pursue a patient-centered career in medication management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between education and labor market is significant and complex. Education increases employment opportunities and reduces the chance of occurrence and duration of unemployment. Earnings, among other things, represent private returns on investment in education and are in the center of the analysis of this article. The main aim of this article is to estimate private and social returns on investment in primary, secondary and tertiary education in selected old and new member states of the European Union (EU) by using two methods (Earnings function and Short-cut method) based on the Mincer equation. Results have shown that there is no statistically significant difference between the estimated private and social returns on investment in primary, secondary and tertiary education in groups of old and new EU members. New members converge towards the old members, at least when it comes to returns on investment in these three education levels. The results also indicate the existence of low and negative returns on investment in education in both old and new EU members. Thus, this article with its new findings contributes significantly to the literature that studies the universality of conclusions on returns on investment in education and the methodology that is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This research aims to know the feasibility and rate of return of education investment at higher education. The design of this research uses a descriptive-comparative with a quantitative approach. The population consists of 491 respondents at the Department Education Administration, Faculty of Education, State University of Malang. The sample was determined 123 respondents use a purposive random sampling technique. Data were collected used questionnaires in Google Form and analyzed used descriptive-comparative and rate of return techniques. This research shows that the alumni's investment in this Department can be said feasible. Besides, the alumni’s rate of return has differences based on study period and gender. Abstrak: Penelitian ini ditujukan untuk mengetahui kelayakan dan tingkat pengembalian investasi pendidikan alumni Program Studi Administrasi Pendidikan Fakultas Ilmu Pendidikan Universitas Negeri Malang. Rancangan penelitian ini menggunakan deskriptif-komparatif dengan pendekatan kuantitatif. Populasi terdiri dari 491 orang dan ditetapkan sampel sejumlah 123 orang dengan teknik purposive random sampling. Pengumpulan data menggunakan kuesioner dalam bentuk Google Form, dan dianalisis dengan teknik deskriptif-komparatif serta rate of return. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan, bahwa investasi yang dilakukan alumni di Prodi Administrasi Pendidikan FIP UM dapat dikatakan layak. Di samping itu, tingkat pengembalian investasi alumni berbeda berdasarkan masa studi dan jenis kelamin.

Copyright of Saber, Ciencia y Libertas is the property of Saber, Ciencia y Libertad 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.)

Degree apprentices (DAs) undertake an exciting, alternative route to academic qualifications, combining real employment with University study. Here, we discuss their education in 'Quality Improvement' at WMG, focusing on the development of statistical expertise in Year 2 of their programme to procure real improvements in manufacturing and service operations. We show how the preparation for these in Year 1 and the further extension of these in Year 3, interleaved with work-based projects, ensure that DAs can make a significant impact during their apprenticeships. This provides a rapid return on investment for employers, and recognition and faster career progression for DAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine the convenience of investing in more years of education after graduating from high school, the aim is to analyze a scenario under uncertainty as well as the household valuation of risk given the US subprime bubble. By using real option value and expected utility the main results are: 1) The optimal choice is to invest in more years of education immediately after graduating from high school; 2) The expected utility of investing is higher for risk-averse households and 3) No important differences were found in the observed periods, except with the reduction in wages between 2009 and 2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the market's reaction to U. K. Insider transactions and analyzes whether the reaction depends on the firm's ownership. We present three major findings. First, differences in regulation between the U. K. And United States, in particular the speedier reporting of trades in the U. K. , may explain the observed larger abnormal returns in the U. K. Second, ownership by directors and outside shareholders has an impact on the abnormal returns. Third, it is important to adjust for news released before directors' trades. In particular, trades preceded by news on mergers and acquisitions and CEO replacements contain significantly less information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth in capital expenditures conditions subsequent classification of firms to portfolios based on size and book-to-market ratios, as in the widely used Fama and French (1992, 1993) methods. Growth in capital expenditures also explains returns to portfolios and the cross section of future stock returns. These findings are consistent with recent theoretical models (e.g., Berk, Green, and Naik (1999)) in which the exercise of investment-growth options results in changes in both valuation and expected stock returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assemble the announcement and actual introduction dates of electronic trading by the leading exchanges of 120 countries to examine the impact of automation, controlling for risk factors and economic conditions. Dividend growth models and international CAPM suggest a significant decline in the equity premium, especially in emerging markets. Consistent with this reduction in the equity premium in the long run, there is a positive short-term price reaction to the switch. Further analysis of trading turnover supports the notion that electronic trading enhances the liquidity and informativeness of stock markets, leading to a reduction in the cost of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Returns on international equities are characterized by jumps; moreover, these jumps tend to occur at the same time across countries leading to systemic risk. We capture these stylized facts using a multivariate system of jump-diffusion processes where the arrival of jumps is simultaneous across assets. We then determine an investor's optimal portfolio for this model of returns. Systemic risk has two effects: One, it reduces the gains from diversification and two, it penalizes investors for holding levered positions. We find that the loss resulting from diminished diversification is small, while that from holding very highly levered positions is large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses recent advances in Bayesian estimation methods to exploit fully and efficiently the time-series and cross-sectional empirical restrictions of the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross model of the term structure. We examine the extent to which the cross-sectional data (five different instruments) provide information about the model. We find that the time-series restrictions of the two-factor model are generally consistent with the data. However, the model's cross-sectional restrictions are not. We show that adding a third factor produces a significant statistical improvement, but causes the average time-series fit to the yields themselves to deteriorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article estimates private and social returns to investment in education in Azerbaijan, using the 2015 Azerbaijan Monitoring Survey for Social Welfare. The private rate of return to education is 6 percent; this is the first estimate of returns to schooling in Azerbaijan since 1995. The returns to schooling are 6 percent for men and 8 percent for women, even controlling for selection. In addition, the article estimates the returns for higher education; for this level, the rate of return is 9 percent. Finally, using the full discount method, the private rate of return for tertiary education is 9 percent, and the social rate of return is 8 percent. One policy implication is to reexamine the funding of higher education and its expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document analyzes the variables in the determination of the income of the workers of a spare parts retailer in the metropolitan zone of Guadalajara. The allocation of income is vital as it guarantees employee satisfaction and helps the organization. In the absence of an adequate compensation system, it is likely that employees leave the organization and it is necessary to recruit new staff. The balance point between satisfaction with the compensation obtained and the competitive capacity of the company must be found. The methodology used consisted in making a series of regressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The children of high-income parents often become high-income adults, while their low-income peers often become low-income adults. Education plays a central role in this intergenerational income persistence. Because education-based inequalities grew in recent decades, many scholars predicted that intergenerational income persistence would increase. However, previous research suggests that it remained stable across recent cohorts. We address this puzzle. Analyzing National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth data, we find that growing educational inequality by parental income, along with rising economic returns to education, increased intergenerational persistence, as scholars expected. However, two countervailing trends offset this increase. The expansion of higher education reduced persistence, because completing college helps low-income children become high-income adults. Yet, this reduction in persistence was far from enough to offset the increase in persistence associated with growing educational inequality and rising educational returns. Intergenerational persistence would have increased if not for another change: within educational groups, parental income became less predictive of adult income. New methodological tools underlie these findings, tools that quantify, for the first time, education's full force in intergenerational income persistence. These findings suggest that to reduce intergenerational persistence, educational policies should focus less on how many people complete college and more on who completes college. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ordinary Least Square coefficient of years of schooling in standard Mincer's (1974) equation may not reflect the effect of education on wages if it is correlated with ability of individual that also correlated with wages. Furthermore, productivity and skills between gender also may contribute differently on wages. Hence, this paper aims to estimate the economic returns to schooling on wages for Malaysia by using data gathered from the field survey of 1263 respondents in 2015. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we construct an ability index of individual during schooling and workplace to tackle the problem of omitted ability variable bias in OLS estimation. Then we compare this outcome with instrumental variable method by using family background as the instrument for education, taking into account the endogeneity problem. Second, we also investigate if the overall effect of education on wages reponds differently between genders by comparing both OLS and IV estimations. Our results indicate that family background is proven to be the best instrument for education, taking into account the endogeneity problem. Then, the IV rate of return for overall sample and split sample are higher than OLS. In regard of genders, the OLS suggests higher rate of return of men while IV estimates higher rate of return of women. These results have particularly important policy implications, concerning the government wage policies to achieve fair income between genders and thus contribute to the further development of Malaysian labor market efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Duality theory is employed to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for portfolios on the minimum-variance frontier to have positive investment proportions in all assets. These conditions involve the feasibility of portfolios that have non-negative correlation with all assets and positive correlation with at least one. Using these results, several "qualitative" results concerning the signs of investment proportions in efficient portfolios are proved. It is argued that the conditions that ensure all-positive weights in efficient portfolios are intuitively compelling and are not unique to the CAPM. With large numbers of assets, however, the signs of weights in minimum-variance portfolios can be very sensitive to slight departures from these conditions due to, for example, sampling error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a simple model of net foreign investment. It is shown that an increase in the expected return of investments in the foreign technology decreases net foreign investment in the domestic country, whereas an increase in the variance of the return of investments in the foreign technology increases net foreign investment in the domestic country. An increase in foreign wealth accompanied by an equivalent decrease in domestic wealth is shown to increase net foreign investment in the domestic country. Finally, it is shown that an increase in the risk tolerance coefficient of the domestic investor has, to a first approximation, no effect on net foreign investment in the domestic country. A closed-form solution is given for the case in which all investors have a logarithmic utility function and is used to derive the dynamics of net foreign investment. One direction in which the present model could be extended consists in taking into account the fact that it is harder for domestic investors to enforce property rights abroad than at home. If property rights cannot be enforced abroad by domestic investors and at home by foreign investors, net foreign investment is always equal to zero, even though gross foreign investment differs from zero. Whereas the differential cost of enforcing property rights at home and abroad for domestic investors creates incentives for foreign investors to take actions which reduce the value of the net investment abroad by domestic investors, domestic investors can impose substantial penalties on foreign investors if they engage in confiscatory actions. The suggested extension of the analysis involves the development of a concept of equilibrium that accounts for the dependence of the actions of domestic investors on what they believe foreign investors will do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the equivalence of alternative mean-variance capital budgeting models proposed by various researchers and reduces the apparent differences between the models to a common equivalence. The variations present in each model are described, and the results obtained using each formulation are compared. Several dynamic formulations that the author feels have not received the attention they deserve are discussed. Several opportunities to extend current financial theory are considered.

Many studies in recent years have noted that--contrary to intuition and received theory--financial leverage (measured as the book value of debt/capital or debt/equity) and mean rates of return on equity vary inversely among firms and industries. Hall and Weiss (1967) and Gale (1972) found this phenomenon using corporate book earnings to compute rate of return, whereas Arditti (1967) and Nerlove (1968) generated similar results using stockholder returns. Recently, Baker (1973), utilizing corporate profits as his measure, also found the "wrong" sign for leverage effects in a single equation model but the "correct" sign in a simultaneous equations model. Unfortunately, the book rate of return on equity already reflects corporate financing choices made in light of underlying operating profit and risk characteristics. It is a principal proposition of this study that a more fruitful line of approach is to examine the relationship between these characteristics and the capital structure decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments in response to the article "Expectations, Prices, Coupons and Yields," by A. Buse, originally appearing in the September 1970 issue of "Journal of Finance." The author amends a theorem appearing in the original article, making it applicable to any arbitrary pattern of expected rates of return. A general theorem is developed which relates the internal rate of return of a bond to an arbitrary pattern of expected rates over a specified period.

This study reports on an empirical effort directed at determining whether the legal union of two firms produces effects different from those which might otherwise accompany an informal purchase of both companies' shares by the portfolio investor. Although we direct our attention to mergers which are basically non-conglomerate in nature, extensive analysis reveals that merger fails to produce economically significant changes in the distribution of rates of return to the stockholder. Our attention centers on the risk attributes of the distribution, and we do not address dollar benefits of combination which are capitalized in the stock price with the announcement and subsequent consummation of the combination. This study follows several others in the literature which have attempted to assess the consequences of merger. The approaches taken to the problem are varied and the conclusions drawn are in some respects conflicting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers results using the first complete and unsmoothed data set investigating the pure expectations hypothesis, first introduced by David Meiselman. A summary analysis of previous research using the Meiselman approach is presented, indicating the problems associated with the data sets used in these studies for testing this hypothesis. The Eurodollar market is offered as a testing ground for the hypothesis because of it is relatively lacking the problems associated with other databases. The results of the estimation using an explicit yield curve are discussed, which lend substantial support to the error-learning hypothesis as empirically valid. One-period holding period returns are compared with one-period issues, as a gauge of the liquidity premiums for different maturities.

To date, the multifarious recent analyses of the theory of conglomerate mergers have all been confined to the one-country case where the stock of the parent and its subsidiaries are all traded on a single capital market. This paper aims to innovate by using the theory of capital asset pricing to extend the theory of conglomerate acquisitions to the international setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors report on the effects of a trade show on incremental sales and profits for a manufacturer of gas chromatographic equipment. Their analysis indicates that the show provided positive economic returns to the firm. They also provide evidence that the show had positive effects on generating product awareness and interest. Although their research studies a single firm and the effect of a single show, the authors' results indicate that, under carefully controlled conditions, the returns from trade show investments can indeed be measured and quantified and that extensions of their approach may have broad applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few models are currently available to aid managers in their strategic market planning. The models or frameworks that do exist have a variety of shortcomings. This paper develops a planning model based on a firm's targeted levels of margin and return designed to provide a partial foundation on which its managers can base their strategic market planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of managed portfolios is often used to evaluate the effectiveness of investment managers. Such evaluation, however, does not serve to measure the effectiveness of investment decision rules. This article focuses on the evaluation of the decision rules themselves in order to determine whether a technically oriented investment strategy can consistently obtain superior portfolio performance over an extended period of time. The strategy tested in this study appears to have the ability to predict stock price movements and to obtain superior portfolio performance at a level of risk that is significantly lower than normal market risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several recent studies suggest that equity mutual fund managers achieve superior returns and that considerable persistence in performance exists. This study utilizes a unique data set including returns from all equity mutual funds existing each year. These data enable us more precisely to examine performance and the extent of survivorship bias. In the aggregate, funds have underperformed benchmark portfolios both after management expenses and even gross of expenses. Survivorship bias appears to be more important than other studies have estimated. Moreover, while considerable performance persistence existed during the 1970s, there was no consistency in fund returns during the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Capital Asset Pricing Model implies that (i) the market portfolio is efficient and (ii) expected returns are linearly related to betas. Many do not view these implications as separate, since either implies the other, but we demonstrate that either can hold nearly perfectly while the other fails grossly. If the index portfolio is inefficient, then the coefficients and R² from an ordinary least squares regression of expected returns on betas can equal essentially any values and bear no relation to the index portfolio's mean-variance location. That location does determine the outcome of a mean-beta regression fitted by generalized least squares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The predictability of an asset's returns will affect the prices of options on that asset, even though predictability is typically induced by the drift, which does not enter the option pricing formula. For discretely-sampled data, predictability is linked to the parameters that do enter the option pricing formula. We construct an adjustment for predictability to the Black-Scholes formula and show that this adjustment can be important even for small levels of predictability, especially for longer maturity options. We propose several continuous-time linear diffusion processes that can capture broader forms of predictability, and provide numerical examples that illustrate their importance for pricing options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous empirical studies document patterns in the means and variances of security returns measured over periods that are punctuated by market closures. This article develops a multiperiod model in which closures delay the resolution of uncertainty, thereby redistributing risk across time and agents. Since agents are risk averse in the model, this redistribution affects the equilibrium price, altering risk premia, liquidity costs, and the degree of informational asymmetry. As a consequence, closures alter both the means and variances of returns. The article demonstrates that closures can generate a variety of mean and variance effects, including those that mirror the empirical phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the economic value of the investment in the doctor of philosophy (Ph. D.) degree in economics. To derive the internal rate of return to the Ph. D. in economics, conventional cost-benefit methodology is used. A five-way classification was utilized to determine the variations in the conditions surrounding graduate work in economics. These classification are: by type of employment, method of financing, length of schooling, salary and earnings as measures of income and private and social cost-and-benefit perspectives.

The article comments on an article by Arthur Carol and Samuel Parry about the economic rational of occupational choice. The authors are interested to the proposal of Carol and Parry that families should have ready access to information regarding the pecuniary returns on investments in education. However, the authors argue that the choice model is theoretically inadequate because of its failure to consider the uncertainty of receiving future returns in various occupations. They suggest a government manpower policy different from the model of Carol and Parry.

Undertaking a pharmacy education is an investment in human capital. Candidates trade off present versus future costs and benefits. They make this investment with the expectation of earning enough income throughout their worklives to make their undertaking financially worthwhile. Whether or not this occurs is determined by the rate of return. The aim of the current study was to construct a theoretical model to estimate the rate of return to a pharmacy education investment. Specifications for model assumptions, inputs, and outputs are discussed. The outputs are the rates of return, the inputs are the costs and benefits of a pharmacy education, and the assumptions illustrate the circumstances of the individual or group for whom the model is built. The rate of return is the annual percentage that equates the streams of benefits and costs over the investment span. The higher the value of the rate of return to a pharmacy education is, the more profitable is the investment. This theoretical model may be used to estimate the financial viability of pharmacy and compare it to the viability of other professions or to the viability of pharmacy among various locations.