Estimating the social rate of return to education for Indigenous Australians

This paper compares estimates of the social rate of return to education for Indigenous Australians with those for non-Indigenous Australians. The social rate of return measures the net benefits to society of educating its citizens. If education is treated as an investment by society in its people, then Australian society will be made better off by an increase in educational investment as long as the social rate of return is higher than that for other public investments. This paper provides a discussion of the concept of the social rate of return to education and some estimates for Indigenous Australians. Higher levels of education, in general, lead to an increased probability of finding employment and higher levels of income in employment. Hence, an increased level of education for an Indigenous person would be of advantage in economic terms; the private rate of return to education is likely to be quite high. In addition, we argue that increasing education has important social benefits (so-called 'externalities') for Indigenous people and society in general: improved education would lead to better nutrition, better living conditions, better access to health services, and hence a longer and healthier life. This means that productivity would be higher for Indigenous people and they would have higher incomes over a longer period of time. In addition, we argue that improved levels of education have the capacity to contribute to a decrease in the numbers of Indigenous people who are imprisoned, and thus lead to a direct reduction in the costs of imprisonment. Thus, increased education increases the earnings span, decreases prison costs and hence increases the social rate of return. We find that the social rate of return for education is generally higher for Indigenous Australians than for non-Indigenous Australians. This suggests, from a public policy perspective, that government should allocate increased funding for the education of Indigenous people since this social rate of return is greater than the Department of Finance recommended cut-off rates for government investment projects

The informal labour market in India : transitory or permanent employment for migrants?

The informal economy is a very important sector of the Indian economy. The National Council of Applied Economic Research estimates that the informal sector - "unorganised sector" - generates about 62% of GDP and provides for about 55% of total employment (ILO 2002, p. 14). This paper studies the characteristics of the workers in the informal economy and whether internal migrants treat this sector as a temporary location before moving on to the organised or formal sector to improve their lifetime income and living conditions. We limit our study to the Indian urban (non-agricultural) sector and study the characteristics of the household heads that belong to the informal sector (self-employed and informal wage workers) and the formal sector. We find that household heads that are less educated, come from poorer households, and/or are in lower social groups (castes and religions) are more likely to be in the informal sector. In addition, our results show strong evidence that the longer a rural migrant household head has been working in the urban sector, ceteris paribus, the more likely that individual has moved out of the informal wage sector. These results support the hypothesis that, for internal migrants, the informal wage labour market is a stepping stone to a better and more certain life in the formal sector

Was Working Nation Working?

After several months of research and consultation the previous Labor government introduced in May 1994 a set of labour market programs targeted at the long term unemployed with its publication of Working Nation. With the new Coalition government taking office in March 1996 we saw the end of Working Nation. Working Nation had a short life: it was born accompanied with a loud fanfare, it was buried quietly. Did Working Nation labour market programs lead to a fall in unemployment and a fall in long term unemployment? This paper attempts to evaluate its success using simple econometric methods on macroeconomic data. Our results suggest that although Working Nation had a very short life it succeeded in helping the long term unemployed: it was a very valuable social experiment which was aborted for political reasons. The Coalition government has apparently lost interest in the long term unemployed: there has been a massive cutback in expenditure on labour market programs and the only plans it has announced to date are the work for the dole scheme for long term unemployed young people. It is hoping that its industrial relations legislation will lead to a miraculous solution to the problem of unemployment and long term unemployment which has plagued most of the OECD economies for several years

Top Management Team Diversity: A systematic Review

Empirical research investigating the impact of top management team (TMT) diversity on executives’ decision making has produced inconclusive results. To synthesize and aggregate the results on the diversity-performance link, a meta-regression analysis (MRA) is conducted. It integrates more than 200 estimates from 53 empirical studies investigating TMT diversity and its impact on the quality of executives’ decision making as reflected in corporate performance. The analysis contributes to the literature by theoretically discussing and empirically examining the effects of TMT diversity on corporate performance. Our results do not show a link between TMT diversity and performance but provide evidence for publication bias. Thus, the findings raise doubts on the impact of TMT diversity on performance

Inequalities and Agencies in Workplace Learning Experiences: International Student Perspectives

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12186-016-9167-2National systems of vocational education and training around the globe are facing reform driven by quality, international mobility, and equity. Evidence suggests that there are qualitatively distinctive challenges in providing and sustaining workplace learning experiences to international students. However, despite growing conceptual and empirical work, there is little evidence of the experiences of these students undertaking workplace learning opportunities as part of vocational education courses. This paper draws on a four-year study funded by the Australian Research Council that involved 105 in depth interviews with international students undertaking work integrated learning placements as part of vocational education courses in Australia. The results indicate that international students can experience different forms of discrimination and deskilling, and that these were legitimised by students in relation to their understanding of themselves as being an ‘international student’ (with fewer rights). However, the results also demonstrated the ways in which international students exercised their agency towards navigating or even disrupting these circumstances, which often included developing their social and cultural capital. This study, therefore, calls for more proactively inclusive induction and support practices that promote reciprocal understandings and navigational capacities for all involved in the provision of work integrated learning. This, it is argued, would not only expand and enrich the learning opportunities for international students, their tutors, employers, and employees involved in the provision of workplace learning opportunities, but it could also be a catalyst to promote greater mutual appreciation of diversity in the workplace

Two Distinct Modes of Hypoosmotic Medium-Induced Release of Excitatory Amino Acids and Taurine in the Rat Brain In Vivo

A variety of physiological and pathological factors induce cellular swelling in the brain. Changes in cell volume activate several types of ion channels, which mediate the release of inorganic and organic osmolytes and allow for compensatory cell volume decrease. Volume-regulated anion channels (VRAC) are thought to be responsible for the release of some of organic osmolytes, including the excitatory neurotransmitters glutamate and aspartate. In the present study, we compared the in vivo properties of the swelling-activated release of glutamate, aspartate, and another major brain osmolyte taurine. Cell swelling was induced by perfusion of hypoosmotic (low [NaCl]) medium via a microdialysis probe placed in the rat cortex. The hypoosmotic medium produced several-fold increases in the extracellular levels of glutamate, aspartate and taurine. However, the release of the excitatory amino acids differed from the release of taurine in several respects including: (i) kinetic properties, (ii) sensitivity to isoosmotic changes in [NaCl], and (iii) sensitivity to hydrogen peroxide, which is known to modulate VRAC. Consistent with the involvement of VRAC, hypoosmotic medium-induced release of the excitatory amino acids was inhibited by the anion channel blocker DNDS, but not by the glutamate transporter inhibitor TBOA or Cd2+, which inhibits exocytosis. In order to elucidate the mechanisms contributing to taurine release, we studied its release properties in cultured astrocytes and cortical synaptosomes. Similarities between the results obtained in vivo and in synaptosomes suggest that the swelling-activated release of taurine in vivo may be of neuronal origin. Taken together, our findings indicate that different transport mechanisms and/or distinct cellular sources mediate hypoosmotic medium-induced release of the excitatory amino acids and taurine in vivo