In the contemporary United States, marriage is closely related to money. Men and (perhaps to a lesser extent) women with more education, higher incomes, larger stocks of wealth, and more stable employment are more likely to marry than are people in more precarious economic positions. But is this relationship truly causal? That is, does economic…

We review studies of the impact of credit constraints on the accumulation of human capital. Evidence suggests that credit constraints are increasingly important for schooling and other aspects of households' behavior. We highlight the importance of early childhood investments, since their response largely determines the impact of credit…

In Sen's Capability Approach (CA) well-being can be defined as the freedom of choice to achieve the things in life which one has reason to value most for his or her personal life. Capabilities are in Sen's vocabulary therefore the real freedoms people have or the opportunities available to them. In this paper we examine the impact of capabilities…

This paper views overschooling as conditions whereby people occupy job positions which are not optimal for their qualifications. The theoretical backings for the paper are the Human Capital, the equity and the two-factor theories of motivation and job satisfaction. Antecedents to overschooling which are mentioned include educational emphasis, the…

We review studies of the impact of credit constraints on the accumulation of human capital. Evidence suggests that credit constraints have recently become important for schooling and other aspects of households' behavior. We highlight the importance of early childhood investments, as their response largely determines the impact of credit…

The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program is growing at an unsustainable pace. Over the past 40 years the number of disabled worker beneficiaries has increased nearly sixfold, rising from 1.5 million in 1970 to 8.2 million in 2010. Rapid growth in the rolls has put increasing pressure on program finances. The rapid rise in SSDI…

Progress in educational development in the world since 1900 has been slow and uneven between countries. Providing basic education for all children in developing countries has been and remains an unmet challenge of governments and international organizations alike. This is in sharp contrast to recent findings in the economics literature on the…

The focus of this paper is on a microeconomic analysis of the annual transition rate from temporary to permanent work of individual workers in Canada for the period 1999-2004. Given that a large proportion of temporary employment is involuntary, an understanding of the factors associated with the transition to permanent work may inform public…

Canada weathered the global economic crisis well, mainly reflecting sustained growth in domestic pending, and the economy is continuing to grow despite the persistence of international turbulence, most recently stemming from the euro zone sovereign debt crisis. In Canada's case, several factors are acting in its favour. Federal fiscal plans are…

Five years have passed since the U.S. Census Bureau published synthetic estimates of work-life earnings by educational attainment. This paper updates those figures with the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau's annual Current Population Surveys, and adds net present value analysis of the financial benefit of a college degree to the…

Examines whether devoting more resources to education can positively affect the distribution of income within a country. Finds that public-education expenditures appear to be associated with a subsequent decrease in the level of income inequality. Finding is robust to the inclusion of various control variables and appears to be larger in…

This paper sketches some highlights of research in the economics of education since 1960. (CD)

This monograph provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the literacy proficiencies of the adult immigrant population (16-65 years old) in the U.S. in recent years and assesses their implications for the labor force behavior, employment, earnings, incomes, and civic behavior of the immigrant population. The first section will present…

The 1990 Rural Sociological Society's Task Force on Persistent Rural Poverty describes rural poverty, comparing it to urban poverty; rejects human-capital, economic-organization, and culture-of-poverty theories of rural poverty and proposes research on 10 other theories; and discusses rural policy and its inequitable emphasis on farmers. (KS)

Reducing the dropout rate of Mississippi's public education system from its national high of 42 percent of all students in any potential graduating class to the national average of 10 percent of the class cohort would result in substantial economic benefits to the state far outweighing the related costs, according to this analysis of relevant…