El primer capítulo de la tesis sobre "Estudios Empíricos sobre Capital Humano e Instituciones" presenta estimaciones de retornos a la educación en Alemania y analiza los determinantes de las preferencias educativas. El segundo capítulo utiliza estimaciones de retornos a la experiencia en el país de origen de inmigrantes en Estados Unidos para proporcionar evidencia empírica que el comercio aumenta la acumulación de capital humano en el trabajo, incluso en los países menos desarrollados, resolviendo la ambigüedad teórica si el comercio aumenta o disminuye "learning-by-doing". La acumulación de capital humano en el trabajo es también positivamente asociada con el PIB per capita, un alto nivel de educación y una mayor calidad de políticas e instituciones. El último capítulo analiza el efecto de recursos naturales y asistencia externa sobre la calidad de instituciones, proporcionando evidencia empírica que -contrario a la asistencia externa, la abundancia de mineral y combustible tiende a ser asociada negativamente con la calidad de instituciones si la fragmentación étnica es grande. / The first chapter of the thesis on "Empirical Studies on Human Capital and Institutions" presents estimates of returns to education in Germany and analyses the determinants of educational choices. The second chapter uses estimated returns to home country experience of US immigrants to provide empirical evidence that trade increases on-the-job human capital accumulation even in less developed countries, thereby resolving the theoretical ambiguity whether trade increases or decreases learning-by-doing. Similar to trade, GDP per capita, a high average level of educational attainment and stronger quality of policy and institutions are found to be positively associated with on-the-job human capital accumulation. The last chapter analyses the effect of natural resources and aid on institutions, providing empirical evidence that contrary to aid, mineral and fuel abundance tends to be associated with significantly lower quality of institutions if ethnic fractionalization is large.

Univ., Diss.--Heidelberg, 2004.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Economics, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 23, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-94). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-228). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-228). Also available on the Internet.

A importância do investimento em capital humano para o crescimento econômico de um país foi o que motivou esta dissertação. Procuramos explicá-lo analisando a eficácia na utilização da verba do Programa Nacional de Assistência Estudantil (PNAES), através do desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes. Inicialmente, apresentamos uma revisão de alguns modelos desenvolvidos para explicar o crescimento econômico e após, incluímos a visão dos economistas Adam Smith e Alfred Marshall sobre a relação entre crescimento econômico e educação. A Teoria do Capital Humano nas visões de Theodore Schultz, Gary Becker e Jacob Mincer foi apresentada e comentamos a influência do nível de educação no crescimento econômico e as externalidades positivas da educação. Através de uma perspectiva histórica, mostramos como a educação superior foi expandindo ao longo dos anos e, através de pesquisa documental, apresentamos as mais recentes políticas públicas educacionais para o ensino superior no Brasil. Abordamos amplamente o PNAES e sua aplicação na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Foi realizada a análise dos dados da pesquisa, através do teste t-Student para duas amostras independentes, com o propósito de verificar se as ações motivadas pelo PNAES têm garantido igualdade de condições entre os estudantes em vulnerabilidade socioeconômica e que são beneficiários do PNAES e os demais estudantes. Optamos por utilizar a Taxa de Integralização Média (TIM) do curso e a do estudante para avaliar o desempenho acadêmico. Concluímos que o PNAES foi parcialmente eficaz quando comparamos o desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes de graduação da UFRGS: beneficiados e não beneficiados, cujas médias das TIMs percentuais não são iguais, mas os dois grupos apresentaram uma média da TIM percentual superior a 50% da média da TIM dos respectivos cursos, evidenciando que os estudantes vão conseguir concluir o seu curso no tempo máximo permitido pela Universidade. No grupo de estudantes que ingressaram na modalidade baixa renda, os dados evidenciaram que o PNAES está sendo eficaz porque não existe igualdade entre as médias das taxas percentuais e, também, observamos que os estudantes que solicitaram os benefícios apresentam, na média, taxas maiores do que os demais. Recomendamos a realização de estudos detalhados do desempenho acadêmico por curso, o acompanhamento pedagógico aos estudantes beneficiados, a manutenção de banco de dados atualizado e a avaliação permanente do PNAES por meio de indicadores de monitoramento. / The importance of investment in human capital for the economic growth of a country was the motivation for this thesis. We attempt to explain this by analyzing the efficacy in the use of the National Program of Student Assistance (PNAES) through the analysis of the academic performance of students. We begin by showing a review of some models developed to explain the economic growth. Then, we introduce the views of the economists Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall on the relation between economic growth and education. We then present the Human Capital Theory from the viewpoints of Theodore Schultz, Gary Becker and Jacob Mincer and comment on the influence of the level of education on the economic growth and the positive externalities of education. Next, we use a historical perspective to demonstrate how higher education has expanded over the years, and we use documentary research to present the most recent affirmative actions in higher education in Brazil. We approach in detail the application of PNAES at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). We used Student's t-test for the data analysis of two independent samples in order to verify if the actions encouraged by PNAES have been assuring equal conditions among regular students and students who face social economic vulnerability and are beneficiaries of PNAES. We use the course and the student's Average Completion Rates (TIM) to evaluate academic performance. Based on the comparison between students of higher education at UFRGS who are beneficiaries of PNAES and students who are not beneficiaries of PNAES, we concluded that PNAES was partially effective. The percentage TIMs are not the same for the two groups, but both have percentage TIM above 50% in regards to the average TIM of the respective courses. This shows both groups of students will be able to conclude their courses within the time allowed by the university. Considering only the group of students who joined the university through the low-income modality, data show that PNAES has been effective because there is no equality between the average percentage rates. We have also noted that students who applied for the grant have, on average, higher rates than the remaining students do. We recommend the conduction of detailed studies on academic performance per course, pedagogic supervision of beneficiaries, maintenance of updated database, and permanent evaluation of PNAES with monitoring indicators.

This thesis is an effort to advance our knowledge and understanding of the role that labor plays in shaping corporate financial policies and how it is in turn affected by considerations related to firms' financing. I present three essays on the interaction between finance and labor. First, I provide two examples of how labor affects financial decisions, in which I investigate the impacts that commitment to employee welfare and reliance on skilled labor have on cash management policies. Next, I examine the effect of ownership structure on labor investment decisions as an example of how finance affects human capital. In the first essay, I examine the relation between employee welfare practices and corporate cash holdings. Consistent with the predictions of the stakeholder theory, I find firms that are strongly committed to employee welfare, measured by ratings on employee relations, to hold more cash. The effect of employee welfare standards on cash holdings is stronger for firms in human-capital-intensive, competitive, and low turnover industries in which employees are more important to their businesses. The findings highlight the importance of human capital and employee-friendly practices as an overlooked determinant of cash holdings and suggest that managers can use cash to signal their financial health to current and potential employees, thereby increasing their competitiveness in labor markets. The second essay examines whether a firm's dependence on skilled labor affects its cash holdings. Consistent with a precautionary motive to accumulate cash when higher labor adjustment costs slow a firm's labor demand reaction to cash flow shocks, I find robust evidence that companies with higher shares of skilled labor hold more cash. The effect of skilled labor on cash holdings is more pronounced for firms that are financially constrained, attach higher values to their human capital, operate in competitive product markets, and belong to industries characterized by high labor mobility. The findings suggest that labor heterogeneity, and in particular the skill level of workers is an important determinant of corporate cash policies. The results provide managers of firms, particularly those that are financially constrained, with insights on how to minimize their labor adjustment costs and reduce the risk of losing their valuable human capital. In my third essay, I examine whether the presence of long-term institutional investors, who typically have strong monitoring incentives, can help mitigate agency conflicts associated with firms' employment choices. I find that abnormal net hiring, measured as the absolute deviation from net hiring predicted by economic fundamentals, decreases in the presence of institutional investors with longer investment horizons. Firms dominated by long-term shareholders reduce both over-investment (over-hiring and under-firing) and under-investment in labor (under-hiring).The monitoring role of long-term investors is more pronounced for firms facing higher labor adjustment costs. These findings suggest that institutional investors play an important role in firm-level employment decisions.

The aim of this thesis was to examine if the theoretical concept of spatial capital explains the distribution of the human capital and high incomes in an urban region using Stockholm county as an empirical example. The spatial capital theory suggests that geographical proximities can explain social and economic distributions in urban regions and is divided into two subcategories;position and situation capital where the former measures the geographical proximities to urban environments and cultural amenities and the latter measures to proximities to public transportation alternatives. The study was conducted using proximity analysis performed with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in QGIS, and stepwise multiple linear regression analysis performed in SPSS. Human capital and high incomes were chosen as dependent variables due to their relevance to sustainable development, especially in regards to urban economics becoming more knowledge-based. Spatial capital was operationalized into five variables of measuring geographical proximities; distance to central business district (CBD), distance to regional urban cores, distance to nearest amenity, distance to nearest railway, and distance to nearest bus stop. The human capital was operationalized as tertiary education and income was measured as taxable earned income. All results demonstrated statistically significant effects on the dependent variables. Proximity to central Stockholm was the strongest explanatory variable regarding the distribution of human capital and high incomes in Stockholm county. When excluding this variable, distance to railways was proven to have the strongest effect on the distributions. The conclusion was that the spatial capital theory explains that the distance to central Stockholm and distance railways are the strong predictors for how human capital and high incomes are distributed in the county. The robustness of analysis and the empirical findings’ meaning in the context of regional planning in Sweden wasthen presented and discussed.

The work presents one of the Geert Hofstede's approaches to cultural dimensions and and directing their application for the development of rural region to the knowledge economy by influencing the development of human capital. Quantitative research was conducted by questionnaire survey in order to determine the state of the local community, particularly the socio-economic characteristics of the village and material security of the population. The identification of cultural dimensions was carried out using quantitative research VSM 94 & 13. Subsequently, research was expanded to include qualitative research using CSDT.

The thesis contains a theoretical insight into the studies that the issue of human and social capital involved from different perspectives, engage their evolution over time, their measurability, examine them, and complemented with other evidence. This part contains relation of human and social capital in relation to the aging of the human population and focuses on the human capital of older workers. Theoretical study ends with an insight into the basic education, the role of teacher and seeks to provide information on surveys already conducted in the area of education, which in the application of serve for me compared to the data obtained from the survey. The application part is focused on the teaching staff of primary schools. Education in currently globalized world, changing not only its content but also methods and forms of work. Irreplaceable role in this process is played by educators. To meet all the demands placed on them, it is essential that they pay close attention to their continuing education and sharing of acquired education, which is essential to the growth of human and social capital, because they are interacting. The work examines selected sample of teachers and approaches to this issue by detecting what is education motivates them whether they are satisfied with the benefits of educational events, what type of education they prefer etc. Working findings further analyzes looking for relationships between age and sex educators according to the hypotheses . Educator is someone who is in constant contact with other people. This of course also formalizes its attitudes and experiences. As a human being perceives the views of society and shapes on her own views, which it subsequently may influence the exercise of his profession. Therefore, in this part of the thesis is dedicated to exploring and bridging social capital, which determines the size of the circle of people with whom the teachers generally meet and interact. The last research that is possible to find thesis, it is perceptions of social status of teachers by themselves.