Regional Heterogeneity in the Private and Social Returns to Human Capital

Abstract It is thought that policies aimed at encouraging the accumulation of human capital in less productive regions can constitute a key factor in development. However, the effectiveness of this policy depends in large part on each region's capacity to give returns to human capital. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the existence of substantial spatial variations in private and aggregate returns to human capital, indicating that development policies based on stimulating the accumulation of education differ in effectiveness. Results for the Spanish regions suggest that regional variations in social returns are greater than those in private returns.Education, productivity, returns to capital, J24, O18, O47, R11,

Diploma Effects by Gender in the Spanish Labour Market

The aim of this paper is to contrast the nature of the schooling effect on earnings in the Spanish labour market in terms of gender. Hungerford and Solon's (Review of Economics and Statistics 69: 175-177, 1987) methodology is used to distinguish between the returns to schooling arising from mere years of schooling as a reflection of their productivity-enhancing contribution (human capital) and the returns to schooling arising from certificates (diploma effects) as signals of the individual's productivity (sheepskin effects) or as credentialism. The results show evidence only of diploma effects in Upper Secondary Studies for men. Copyright 2006 The Author; Journal compilation 2006 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..