Contemporary Research in Human Capital Theory
Isaac Degaetano & Thomas Abela
Jacques Poot, Matthew Roskruge (2013). “ Internationalisation of Education and Returns in the
Labour market”
Education delivered in any given country undoubtedly contributes to human capital that is employed in another country. This could happen in the form of a person obtaining education in his/her home country and subsequently works abroad, or vice versa. A person may even seek to obtain the highest returns to education by both studying and working abroad. This paper examines how years of foreign and domestic education affect earnings in the labour market. The study was conducted using data from the 2006-07
Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey in New Zealand.
Governments encourage educational institutions to recruit foreign (fee-paying) students as this benefits the country in terms of consumption expenditure, research and innovation and economic growth. Though there has been criticism that this will contribute to a ‘brain drain’ from the migrant-sending countries, especially developing countries. There have been many studies on international migration, education and earnings, but none have given much attention to the rate of return to studying abroad but when working subsequently again in the home country. Theoretical models have been developed which show how foreign experience and on-the-job training of return-migrants may actually lead to a ‘brain gain’ to the home country. The data of total years of education of native born and foreign born workers can be split into education obtained in NZ and education obtained abroad. It must be noted that returns to foreign education may be high due to other factors such as innate ability and selection criteria. The innate ability factor is accounted for by aggregating subjective responses to questions in the survey that also include parent’s educational background. (innate ability of people is assumed to increase if their parents have a higher educational background than others).
Data
Jacques Poot, Matthew Roskruge (2013). “ Internationalisation of Education and Returns in the
Labour market”
Education delivered in any given country undoubtedly contributes to human capital that is employed in another country. This could happen in the form of a person obtaining education in his/her home country and subsequently works abroad, or vice versa. A person may even seek to obtain the highest returns to education by both studying and working abroad. This paper examines how years of foreign and domestic education affect earnings in the labour market. The study was conducted using data from the 2006-07
Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey in New Zealand.
Governments encourage educational institutions to recruit foreign (fee-paying) students as this benefits the country in terms of consumption expenditure, research and innovation and economic growth. Though there has been criticism that this will contribute to a ‘brain drain’ from the migrant-sending countries, especially developing countries. There have been many studies on international migration, education and earnings, but none have given much attention to the rate of return to studying abroad but when working subsequently again in the home country. Theoretical models have been developed which show how foreign experience and on-the-job training of return-migrants may actually lead to a ‘brain gain’ to the home country. The data of total years of education of native born and foreign born workers can be split into education obtained in NZ and education obtained abroad. It must be noted that returns to foreign education may be high due to other factors such as innate ability and selection criteria. The innate ability factor is accounted for by aggregating subjective responses to questions in the survey that also include parent’s educational background. (innate ability of people is assumed to increase if their parents have a higher educational background than others).
Data