Human capital contracts are "equity-like" instruments for financing higher education. Since repayment depends on earning and adjusts to student capital to pay, these contracts should be more attractive to students than traditional loans. By making transparent the relative economic value of certain fields of study or the value of degrees from…

Parson's general theory of action'' as a generalization of economic theory is explained. (FF)

Empirical evidence from a 4-year study of the performance of a sample of rehoused factory workers in Mexico is presented. (Author)

Examination of four Current Population Survey samples shows that schooling and work experience had smaller effects on the unemployment of immigrants than of native white men; despite initial difficulties in finding work, immigrants quickly attain comparable employment/unemployment rates; and immigrants are somewhat more vulnerable to economic…

Examined the impact of black race on earnings, comparing African immigrants with native-born blacks and whites and white immigrants. Data from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Population Censuses indicated that African immigrants had the highest educational attainment but the lowest earnings returns to education. Results highlighted a racial hierarchy in…

Analyzes the cost of specialized education for individuals belonging to "non-competing groups." (Contains 17 references.) (PKP)

Suggests that total factory integration through computer networks, even when technically feasible, might be unwieldy, inefficient, and uneconomical because the human factor and accumulated know-how of the work force tend to be overlooked. (Author/JOW)

Documents a statistically significant, marginally greater probability of admittance into medical school for children of doctors as compared to children of nondoctors. (JOW)

Using the ratio of associates to partners as a measure of human asset leveraging, analysis of data from 312 law firms reveals that the ratio is related to business strategy, human resource management practices, organizational structure, and the competitiveness of the firm. (SK)

In education and the workplace, people are the most valuable resource. Developing human capital can produce competitive advantages for employers and employees. (SK)

Extends the standard human capital model by investigating the effects of uncertainty about future earnings and the probability of becoming unemployed on the optimum amount of schooling, assuming that lifetime earnings are maximized. Greater earnings dispersion by schooling level reduces the returns to schooling. (21 references) (MLH)

The Department of Labor is considering changing accounting rules to allow companies to treat training expenditures as investments rather than expenses. Human asset accounting could be a powerful incentive to increase business investment in training. (SK)

Comparison of German data on second-generation immigrants' educational attainment and those of similarly aged natives showed that foreign-born parents' schooling played no role in children's educational choices. For Germans, educational achievement of parents, especially fathers, influences children's schooling. (SK)

Data from a national survey of 2945 employers showed that those most likely to have formal training programs were larger and had high-performance work systems, capital-intensive production, and better-educated workers. More workers were trained in companies with larger investments in physical capital or new forms of work organization. (SK)

Outlines problems in Australian adult literacy policy; considers whether policy perverts or perfects democracy. Concludes that workable policy offers a conjunction of information, ideology, and interests. (SK)