The impact of human capital on labour productivity in manufacturing sectors of the European Union

This paper discusses the effects of human capital on both the level and growth of labour productivity in manufacturing sectors in seven Member States of the European Union. Sectoral labour productivity is regarded as a measure of international competitiveness. Human capital is represented by the shares of intermediate and highly-skilled workers in the work force of a sector. The paper shows that the manufacturing sectors can be divided into three classes of sectors: low-skill, medium-skill and high-skill sectors. The estimation results show that both intermediate and highly-skilled labour have a positive effect on the sectoral labour productivity level, although the effect is only significant for highly-skilled labour. Moreover, there are indications of underinvestment of human capital in some manufacturing sectors. These sectors could improve their competitive position by raising the employment shares of intermediate and highly-skilled labour. Finally, intermediate-skilled labour has a significantly positive effect on the growth in sectoral labour productivity.labour economics ;

The Dutch Factor Content of Human and Physical Capital: A Test of the HOV Model

The paper tests the validity of the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) theorem of international trade for the Netherlands by comparing the true with the trade-revealed factor endowments of human and physical capital. The factor content analysis shows that the Netherlands is abundant in producer durables and low-skilled labour and is poor in intermediate and highly-skilled labour and structures. These findings are in line with the true Dutch factor endowments relative to 20 other industrialised countries. This confirms the HOV theorem in the Dutch case. Furthermore, the paper shows that sector-specific factor inputs can be used in a cross-section regression analysis to reveal the factor abundances and factor scarcities of the Netherlands, provided that all sectors are included in the analysis.international economics and trade ;

Forecasting the Labour Markets for Research Scientsits and Engineers in the European Union

The aim of this study is to assess whether the higher education systems in the Member States of the European Union will produce sufficient numbers of science & technology (S&T) graduates to meet the demands for research scientists and engineers (RSE’s) up to 2002. On the demand side, we distinguish between job openings due to employment growth (expansion demand) and due to outflow (replacement demand). Employment of RSE’s is modelled as an error correction mechanism with R&D expenditure as the explanatory variable. A recent survey of European R&D establishments enables us to determine replacement demand. On the supply side, the labour market inflow of RSE’s is derived from data on S&T-graduates and RSE employment. We produce forecasts for demand and supply for 14 Member States of the EU under four alternative scenarios, which are based on two dimensions: economic growth and human capital policy. The forecasts are first used to identify labour market discrepancies by country and by field of study. Then we identify the opportunities for international labour mobility to solve the bottlenecks in the labour markets. The forecasting results indicate considerable shortages of RSE’s in certain fields of study in various Member States of the EU under certain scenarios. At the same time, for the EU as a whole there are excess supplies in each of the four fields of study distinguished, no matter which scenario will unfold up to 2002, illustrating the importance of international labour mobility.education, training and the labour market;