Thesis (M.C.A.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 2003. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Hochschule St. Gallen für Wirtschafts-, Rechts- und Sozialwissenschaften, 1995.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-107). Also available on the Internet.

This thesis examines firm innovation in China from firm-level human capital per- spective since resource-based theory and upper echelon theory reveal that the reason why firms vary in performance is that they differ in human capital. Two types of human capital are examined: general human capital measured by number of highly educated workers, and managerial human capital measured by characteristics (edu- cation and age) of general manager and management team. Besides human capital indicators, we also take R&D, firm size, market structure, firm age, ownership, city fixed effects, and industry fixed effects into account. Given the fact that innovations are made up of multifarious elements and hard to measure and define, this thesis examines firm innovation from three different aspects, patent applications, product innovation and total factor productivity.

In recent years young entrepreneurs have attracted considerable attention from policy makers and the media, and there is evidence that increasingly many young people aspire to start their own business. However, there has been little research into how young entrepreneurs actually build their businesses, and the limited existing research about young entrepreneurs has tended to focus on participants who have struggled to achieve business survival and growth. By contrast, this thesis investigates how young entrepreneurs are able to build high performing businesses. All participants have built a business with a turnover between £1 million and £90 million or otherwise raised at least £1 million in external investment. It takes a qualitative approach, based primarily on semi-structured interviewing, to understanding the knowledge and skills 21 young entrepreneurs used to build their businesses. It uses a human capital theory framework to analyse how the young entrepreneurs developed relevant knowledge and skills prior to start-up in order to build a business. It then considers what additional human and social capital the young entrepreneurs acquired during the venture creation process itself. The findings identify three different pathways, each of which typifies the human capital used by particular young entrepreneurs, according to their educational background and the precise age at which they started their business. The study also establishes the necessary human capital which all of the young entrepreneurs developed prior to start-up or during the early stages of starting their ventures, which was important to their success in growing a business. The study finally contributes to the debate about whether general human capital or venture-specific human capital is most important to entrepreneurs, finding that for young entrepreneurs developing pre-start-up general human capital is particularly significant.

The thesis attempts to find the determinants of unemployment rates for a geographical area, the Inland Empire. San Bernardino and Riverside County, located east of Los Angeles, are home to over 4 million people. After reviewing the literature on the determinants of unemployment and the relevance of human capital theories, I develop a human capital index and apply it to the 36 cities in Inland Empire. While some of the control variables are found to be important determinants of unemployment, the human capital index appears to dominate as an explanatory factor. The study concludes with a policy implications.

Human capital is increasingly believed to play an indispensable role in the growth process; however, adequately measuring its stock remains controversial. Because the estimated impact that human capital has on economic growth is sensitive to the measure of human capital, accurate and consistent measures are desirable. While many measures have been developed, most rely on some proxy of educational experience and are thus plagued with limitations. In this study, I adopt a lifetime earnings approach to estimate the monetary value of the human capital stock for New Zealand. I find that the country's working human capital increased by half between 1981 and 2001, mainly due to rising employment level. This stock was well over double that of physical capital. I also model human capital as a latent variable using a Partial Least Squares approach. Exploratory analyses on a number of countries show that age, gender and education combined can capture 65-97 percent of the explained variation in human capital. JEL Classifications: J24, O47.

It is clear that economic growth is achieved by a number of means depending on theoretical affiliation and also that growth rate varies across countries. The thesis investigates the relationship between economic growth and the proportion of representation by women in national parliament across countries. Women are discriminated at every level in the society based on gender and the thesis analyses the effects on production and growth, based on the fact that half of the population are not given equal opportunities to participate in economic activities. The study is performed through two cross-country regression analyses, divided by low- and high-income countries with secondary data. The variables included are: the proportion of seats represented by women, initial GDP/capita, FDI, level of education, population growth, and terms of trade and level of democracy. The variables are chosen in accordance to growth theories. The findings cannot isolate if a high proportion of female parliamentarians increase growth, but the result indicates that a more gender equal economy operate at a higher production level. Increased proportion of female representation in local parliament should according to theory, increase inclusive incentives and policies for women in the labour force and enrolment in higher education, thus increasing the average level of human capital. Previous studies support the result; gender equality is viewed as “smart economics”.

The work represents human capital development problems in Lithuania. There is conception, clasification and formation of human capital resources theoretical analization. It also identifies and analizes human capital formation, development and investing problems. The experiment part uncovers the qualification boucle in Lithuania. In the last part of theoretical analization is given the summation of human capital development opportunities in the future and the possible solutions for existing problems. In the end the conclusions and recommendations are delivered.