Quality-adjusted Human Capital and Productivity Growth

Both the quality and quantity of human capital are important for growth. Although the quality aspects of human capital may have greater potential in explaining growth, given that the quantity effects of human capital have been found to be ambiguous, they have long been ignored in empirical growth literature. This paper empirically tests the joint effects of both the quantity and quality of human capital in stimulating productivity growth for a panel of 89 countries over the period 1970-2007. Based on different measures of human capital quantity and quality, the results show that the growth effects of educational attainment can be significantly enhanced when the quality of schooling is improved. The joint effect of human capital quality and quantity is found to be stronger in developing countries.quantity, quality, human capital, growth, world

The New Zealand performance based research fund and its impact on publication activity in economics

New Zealand’s academic research assessment scheme, the Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF), was launched in 2002 with the stated objective of increasing research quality in the nation’s universities. Evaluation rounds were conducted in 2003, 2006 and 2012. In this paper, we employ 22 different journal weighting schemes to generate output estimates of refereed journal paper and page production over three six year periods (1994-1999; 2000-2005 and 2006-2011). These time periods reflect a pre-PBRF environment, a mixed assessment period, and a pure PBRF research environment, respectively. Our findings indicate that, on average, research productivity, defined in either paper or page terms, has increased since the introduction of the PBRF. However, this outcome is due to a major increase in the quantity of papers and pages produced per capita that has more than off-set a decline in the quality of published outputs since the introduction of the PBRF. In other words, our findings suggest that the PBRF has failed to achieve its stated goal of increasing average research quality, but it has resulted in substantial gains in productivity achieved via large increases in the quantity of refereed journal articles

The metric tide: report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. The review was chaired by Professor James Wilsdon, supported by an independent and multidisciplinary group of experts in scientometrics, research funding, research policy, publishing, university management and administration. This review has gone beyond earlier studies to take a deeper look at potential uses and limitations of research metrics and indicators. It has explored the use of metrics across different disciplines, and assessed their potential contribution to the development of research excellence and impact. It has analysed their role in processes of research assessment, including the next cycle of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). It has considered the changing ways in which universities are using quantitative indicators in their management systems, and the growing power of league tables and rankings. And it has considered the negative or unintended effects of metrics on various aspects of research culture. The report starts by tracing the history of metrics in research management and assessment, in the UK and internationally. It looks at the applicability of metrics within different research cultures, compares the peer review system with metric-based alternatives, and considers what balance might be struck between the two. It charts the development of research management systems within institutions, and examines the effects of the growing use of quantitative indicators on different aspects of research culture, including performance management, equality, diversity, interdisciplinarity, and the ‘gaming’ of assessment systems. The review looks at how different funders are using quantitative indicators, and considers their potential role in research and innovation policy. Finally, it examines the role that metrics played in REF2014, and outlines scenarios for their contribution to future exercises

Knowledge and development : a cross-section approach

This paper assesses the effects of knowledge on economic growth. By using an array of indicators, each of which represents an aspect of knowledge, as independent variables in cross-section regressions that span 92 countries for the period 1960 to 2000, they show that knowledge is a significant determinant of long-term economic growth. In particular, the authors find that the stock of human capital, the level of domestic innovation and technological adaptation, and the level of information and communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure all exert statistically significant positive effects on long-term economic growth. More specifically with regard to the growth effects of the human capital stock, they find that an increase of 20 percent in the average years of schooling of a population tends to increase the average annual economic growth by 0.15 percentage point. In terms of innovation, the authors find that a 20 percent increase in the annual number of USPTO patents granted is associated with an increase of 3.8 percentage points in annual economic growth. Lastly, when the ICT infrastructure, measured by the number of telephones per 1,000 persons, is increased by 20 percent, they find that annual economic growth tends to increase by 0.11 percentage point.Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Public Health Promotion,Economic Theory&Research,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Growth,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Theory&Research

Higher education reform: getting the incentives right

This study is a joint effort by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) and the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies. It analyses a number of `best practices¿ where the design of financial incentives working on the system level of higher education is concerned. In Chapter 1, an overview of some of the characteristics of the Dutch higher education sector is presented. Chapter 2 is a refresher on the economics of higher education. Chapter 3 is about the Australian Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). Chapter 4 is about tuition fees and admission policies in US universities. Chapter 5 looks at the funding of Danish universities through the so-called taximeter-model, that links funding to student performance. Chapter 6 deals with research funding in the UK university system, where research assessments exercises underlie the funding decisions. In Chapter 7 we study the impact of university-industry ties on academic research by examining the US policies on increasing knowledge transfer between universities and the private sector. Finally, Chapter 8 presents food for thought for Dutch policymakers: what lessons can be learned from our international comparison