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This study demonstrates a series of links between minority language skills, their economic return and their transmission across generations. Using a detailed matching procedure and different data sources, we estimate the likelihood of being employed for bilingual versus monolingual men for a large number of Mexican indigenous groups. We find that for indigenous groups, retaining the minority language along with Spanish increases employment opportunities. Furthermore, we show that the languages that are associated with larger labour market benefits are more likely to be passed on from parents to children, controlling for other factors. Overall, this study shows that the continuity of minority languages across generations is linked to concrete economic benefits, labour market specialisation, and insurance value, along with the usual social factors within the family and the community.

Social or ethnic segregation can impede the equitable allocation of public resources in developing countries. We study an under-explored dimension; the allocation of public sector teachers in India. Using a register database for 2006-12, we construct indicators for the equality of teacher allocation and workplace segregation of teachers by gender and caste within districts. While pupil-teacher ratios have improved, the equality of teacher allocation has not. We show that allocation and segregation are connected; in districts with a higher degree of initial teacher segregation, a lower share of schools met pupil-teacher norms imposed by the Right to Education Act (2009).

Primary education in India is a development question of a unique magnitude, and the delivery of education by Indian states is often suspected to be marred by political haggling and corruption. Using rich administrative school-level panel data across Indian states, we test for electoral cycles in the provision of school resources. The effects are identified using staggered timing of state elections. We find that rulers allocate more primary school resources in the years preceding and following elections, but there is only weak evidence that resources are targeted to marginal constituencies. The resources affected are visible ones, namely free school uniforms, classrooms, toilets, ramps for the disabled and medical inspections. We also show that around election years, teachers spend more time on "non-teaching" activities. The political cycles are not inevitable, as they are present only in districts characterised by low voter turnout and low female literacy. Finally, we show that electoral cycles affect human capital accumulation: The phase of the electoral cycle in which pupils begin their primary schooling, affects their learning outcomes.

With a sample of 700 future public sector primary teachers in India, a Discrete Choice Experiment is used to measure job preferences, particularly regarding location. General skills are also tested. Urban origin teachers and women are more averse to remote locations than rural origin teachers and men respectively. Women would require a 26-73 percent increase in salary for moving to a remote location. The results suggest that existing caste and gender quotas can be detrimental for hiring skilled teachers willing to work in remote locations. The most preferred location is home, which supports decentralised hiring, although this could compromise skills.

Whether to hire teachers locally on a contract basis, or via competitive examinations as government officials, is a major policy question in developing countries. We use a Discrete Choice Experiment to assess the job preferences of 700 future elementary school teachers in the state of Uttarakhand in India. The students have been selected using either competitive examination or from a pool of locally hired contract teachers. Skills in English, Arithmetic and Vocabulary are also tested. We find a trade-off between skills and preferences, as students hired using competitive examination have higher skills, but prefer posts in less remote regions.

This paper investigates wage disparities across sub-national labour markets in Britain using anewly available microdata set. The findings show that wage disparity across areas is verypersistent over time. While area effects play a role in this wage disparity, most of it is due toindividual characteristics (sorting). Area effects contribute a very small percentage to theoverall variation of wages and so are not very important for understanding overall levels ofwage disparity. Specifically, in our preferred specification area effects explain less than 1of overall wage variation. This share has remained roughly constant over the period 1998-2008.

In this study, a long-term impact of additional schooling at the lower end of the educational distribution is measured on voter turnout. Schooling is instrumented with a staged Norwegian school reform, which increased minimum attainment by two years – from seven to nine. The impact is measured at two levels: individual, and municipality level. Both levels of analysis suggest that the additional education has no effect on the turnout rates. At the individual level, the impact of education is also tested on various measures of civic outcomes. Of these, only the likelihood of signing a petition is positively affected by education.

We show that the length of compulsory education has a causal impact on regional labour mobility. The analysis is based on a quasi-exogenous staged Norwegian school reform, and register data on the whole population. Based on the results, we conclude that part of the US-Europe difference, as well as the European North-South difference in labour mobility, is likely to be due to differences in levels of education in the respective regions.

Computers and ICT have changed the way we live and work. The latest WERS 2004 provides a snapshot of how using ICT at the workplace has changed our working lives. Various studies have suggested that the use of a computer at work boosted earnings by as much as 20%. Others suggest this reported impact is due to unobserved heterogeneity. Using excellent data from the WERS employer-employee matched data we compare OLS estimates with those from estimations which include controls for establishments, industrial sectors and occupations and use control function, treatment effects models and Instrumental Variable estimation. We show that the results of OLS estimation grossly overestimate the return to computer use but that including occupation controls, reduces the return to between 3-10%. We explore the return on different IT skills and also find a return to the intensity of computer use as measured by the number of tasks a computer is used for.

Teollisuuden ja Työnantajain Keskusliiton vuosittain teettämän työvoimatiedustelun aineistosta voidaan muodostaa kaksi tarkasti määriteltyä rekrytointiongelmien mittaria, joita on mahdollista soveltaa joko toimiala- tai toimipaikkakohtaisesti. Näiden kahden mittarin yhteyksiä toimipaikkarakenteeseen sekä tuotantoon arvioidaan teollisuustoimialoittain vuosina 1987-2000. Osoittautuu, että toimipaikan koon ja rekrytointiongelmien yhteys on kaksijakoinen: suuremmat toimipaikat kärsivät useammin rekrytointiongelmista, mutta pienempien toimipaikkojen rekrytointiongelmat ovat vakavampia. Vuoden 2000 rekrytointiongelmat ovat 1980-luvun loppuun verrattuna pienempiä ja harvemmille toimialoille keskittyneitä, mutta voidaan väittää, että määrällisesti eräiden toimialojen rekrytointiongelmat ovat yhtä vakavia kuin 1980-luvun lopun rekrytointiongelmat. Nämä toimialat ovat sähkötekninen, kulkuneuvo, kumija muovituote sekä metallituoteteollisuus. Rekrytointiongelmien kehitykseen vaikuttaa lyhyellä aikavälillä ennen kaikkea tuotannon ja työttömyyden kehitys. Viitteellistä näyttöä löytyy myös sille, että muillakin muuttujilla, kuten tehdyillä työtunneilla, tuntipalkoilla ja toimialan keskittymisasteella on yhteyksiä rekrytointiongelmiin. – rekrytointiongelmia ; teollisuus ; toimipaikan koko ; tuotanto Based on industry-wide surveys compiled by the Confederation of Finnish Industry and Employers, we create two accurately defined indicators of recruitement problems for the Finnish industry sector. These measures can be used at both firm and aggregate level and they cover the years 1987-2000. We find that the difficulties to recruit suitable labour are related to firm size in two ways: Larger firms have a higher overall probability of facing recruitment problems, but the problems that the smaller firms experience are more severe. Compared to the end of the 1980s, the recruitment problems in 2000 were concentrated to fewer sectors. Still, it can be argued that in some sectors the shortages of labour are comparable to the situation in the late 1980s. The recruitment problems are most prominent in sectors that produce electrotechnical equipment, plastics and rubber, fabricated metal products and ships and transport products. In the short run, the dynamics of the two indicators are mainly detemined by the dynamics in output and unemployment. There is also some evidence that working hours per worker, hourly wages and sector dominance of large firms affect the indicators of recruitment problems.

Only abstract. Paper copies of master’s theses are listed in the Helka database (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Electronic copies of master’s theses are either available as open access or only on thesis terminals in the Helsinki University Library. Vain tiivistelmä. Sidottujen gradujen saatavuuden voit tarkistaa Helka-tietokannasta (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Digitaaliset gradut voivat olla luettavissa avoimesti verkossa tai rajoitetusti kirjaston opinnäytekioskeilla. Endast sammandrag. Inbundna avhandlingar kan sökas i Helka-databasen (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Elektroniska kopior av avhandlingar finns antingen öppet på nätet eller endast tillgängliga i bibliotekets avhandlingsterminaler. Tässä pro gradu –tutkielmassa käydään läpi teoreettisia kasvumalleja, joiden pohjalta voidaan arvioida mitä vaikutuksia tulonjaon tasa- tai epätasa-arvoisuudella on inhimillisen pääoman kasautumiseen ja talouskasvuun. Erityisesti arvioidaan, mitkä mekanismit selittäisivät Barron (2000) saamia empiirisiä tuloksia. Barron mukaan tasa-arvoinen tulonjako edistää talouskasvua köyhissä maissa, mutta hidastaa talouskasvua vauraissa maissa. Barron tuloksiin kuului myös huomio, ettei tulonjaolla ole vaikutusta fyysisen pääoman investointeihin. Köyhien maiden osalta Barron tuloksen selitetään johtuvan koulutusinvestointien rahoitusrajoitteista. Mikäli taloudessa on merkittävä joukko ihmisiä jotka eivät pysty rahoittamaan kannattavaksi katsomaansa koulutusinvestointia, voi tasa-arvoisempi tulonjako mahdollistaa nopeamman talouskasvun. Tämän edellytyksenä kuitenkin on, että vähävaraisille jaettu lisätulo kanavoituu koulutusinvestointeihin eikä kulutukseen. Talouksien vaurastuessa koulutusinvestointien rahoitusrajoitteiden ongelma lievenee. Tähän ovat syynä sekä kotitalouksien yleinen vaurastuminen, että mahdollinen julkisrahoitteinen koulutusjärjestelmä. Taloudessa, jossa koulutusinvestointien rahoitusrajoitteet eivät ole suuri ongelma, ei tasaavalla tulonjaolla ole samanlaista kasvua edistävää vaikutusta kuin köyhissä jyrkkien tuloerojen maissa. Vauraiden maiden osalta Barron tuloksen arvioidaan johtuvan teknisten läpimurtojen aiheuttamasta taloudellisesta siirtymävaiheesta. Tekniset innovaatiot siirtävät työvoiman kysyntää kouluttamattomista koulutettuihin työntekijöihin. Tämä nostaa koulutettujen palkkoja suhteessa kouluttamattomiin siitä huolimatta, että koulutettujen tarjonta samalla kasvaa. Tuloerojen kasvu koulutettujen ja kouluttamattomien välillä lisää ihmisten halua kouluttautua. Suurempi koulutettujen määrä puolestaan mahdollistaa edelleen laajamittaisemman innovaatioiden tuottamisen ja hyödyntämisen. Tasaava tulonjako pienentää kannustimia hankkia inhimillistä pääomaa. Tämä kannustimien heikkeneminen johtaa pienempään inhimillisen pääoman määrään, hitaampaan tekniseen kehitykseen ja hitaampaan talouskasvuun. Maissa, joissa tekninen kehitys on keskeinen taloudellisen kasvun lähde, saattaa tasa-arvoinen tulonjako haitata teknisten innovaatioiden täysimittaista hyödyntämistä. Keskeiset lähteet * Barro, R. (2000). Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries. Journal of Economic Growth. vol 5(1), March. pp 87-120. * Galor, O. - Moav, O. (1999). From Physical to Human Capital Accumulation: Inequality in the Process of Development. CEPR working paper 2307. * Galor, O. - Moav, O. (2000). Ability Biased Technological Transition, Wage Inequality, and Economic Growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics. vol 115. pp 469-498. * Galor, O. - Moav, O. (2000). Das Human Kapital. Mimeo. Hebrew University of Jerusalem.