IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bic/journl/v9y2009i1p39-54.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring the Specificity of Human Capital:a Skill-based Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Kristjan-Olari Leping

    (University of Tartu Pärnu College)

Abstract

This article will construct a skill-based measure for human capital specificity. The measure is based on the possibilities of making use of skills on the labour market, which depends on the number of jobs where any particular skill is required. The assumption is that the specificity of human capital depends on the specificity of skills. In order to calculate the levels of specificity of different skills empirically, data from the skill requirements of vacant jobs are used. The validity of this measure is tested by using it as an estimator of the probability that on-the-job training is offered to employees. This article also investigates differences in the specificity of required human capital between different industries and occupations. The proposed job specificity measure can be used for planning public sector support to on-the-job training as companies’ decisions to pay for training depend on the specificity of human capital required.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristjan-Olari Leping, 2009. "Measuring the Specificity of Human Capital:a Skill-based Approach," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 9(1), pages 39-54, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bic:journl:v:9:y:2009:i:1:p:39-54
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/1406099X.2009.10840452
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2004. "From Physical to Human Capital Accumulation: Inequality and the Process of Development," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 1001-1026.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gueorgui Kambourov & Iourii Manovskii, 2009. "Occupational Specificity Of Human Capital," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(1), pages 63-115, February.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Jorn-Steffen Pischke, 1999. "The Structure of Wages and Investment in General Training," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 539-572, June.
    5. Maxim Poletaev & Chris Robinson, 2003. "Human Capital and Skill Specificity," University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP) Working Papers 20036, University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP).
    6. Neal, Derek, 1995. "Industry-Specific Human Capital: Evidence from Displaced Workers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(4), pages 653-677, October.
    7. Hashimoto, Masanori, 1981. "Firm-Specific Human Capital as a Shared Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 475-482, June.
    8. Edward P. Lazear, 2009. "Firm-Specific Human Capital: A Skill-Weights Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 914-940, October.
    9. Katz, Eliakim & Ziderman, Adrian, 1990. "Investment in General Training: The Role of Information and Labour Mobility," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(403), pages 1147-1158, December.
    10. Ingram, Beth & Neumann, George, 1999. "An Analysis of the Evolution of the Skill Premium," Working Papers 99-08, University of Iowa, Department of Economics.
    11. Uschi Backes-Gellner & Johannes Mure, 2005. "The Skill-Weights Approach on Firm Specific Human Capital: Empirical Results for Germany," Working Papers 0056, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU), revised Apr 2005.
    12. Ericson, Thomas, 2004. "Personnel training: a theoretical and empirical review," Working Paper Series 2005:1, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    13. Topel, Robert H, 1991. "Specific Capital, Mobility, and Wages: Wages Rise with Job Seniority," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 145-176, February.
    14. Parent, Daniel, 2000. "Industry-Specific Capital and the Wage Profile: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 306-323, April.
    15. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Firm-specific Capital and Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1246-1260, December.
    16. Mortensen, Dale T, 1988. "Wages, Separations, and Job Tenure: On-the-Job Specific Training or Matching?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(4), pages 445-471, October.
    17. Björn Frank, 2008. "Location decisions in a changing labour market environment," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 28(1), pages 31-42, February.
    18. Topel, Robert H, 1994. "Regional Labor Markets and the Determinants of Wage Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 17-22, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aleksandra Gregorič & Thomas Poulsen, 2020. "When Do Employees Choose to Be Represented on the Board of Directors? Empirical Analysis of Board‐Level Employee Representation in Denmark," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 241-272, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kristjan-Olari Leping, 2005. "Measuring the Specificity of Human Capital: a Skill-based Approach," Working Papers 134, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology.
    2. Dan A. Black & Lars Skipper & Jeffrey A. Smith & Jeffrey Andrew Smith, 2023. "Firm Training," CESifo Working Paper Series 10268, CESifo.
    3. Elisabeth Bublitz, 2018. "Matching skills of individuals and firms along the career path," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 509-537.
    4. Dan Bernhardt & Steeve Mongrain, 2010. "The Layoff Rat Race," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(1), pages 185-210, March.
    5. Sylvain, Serginio, 2014. "Does Human Capital Risk Explain The Value Premium Puzzle?," MPRA Paper 54551, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. By Barbara Mueller & Jürg Schweri, 2015. "How specific is apprenticeship training? Evidence from inter-firm and occupational mobility after graduation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 1057-1077.
    7. Jäger, Simon & Heining, Jörg, 2019. "How Substitutable Are Workers? Evidence from Worker Deaths," MPRA Paper 109757, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jan 2019.
    8. Kwon, Illoong & Meyersson Milgrom, Eva M., 2014. "The significance of firm and occupation specific human capital for hiring and promotions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 162-173.
    9. Gathmann, Christina & Schönberg, Uta, 2006. "How General Is Specific Human Capital?," IZA Discussion Papers 2485, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Kimura, Taro & Kurachi, Yoshiyuki & Sugo, Tomohiro, 2022. "Decreasing wage returns to human capital: Analysis of wage and job experience using micro data of workers☆," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Matthias Kräkel, 2016. "Human Capital Investment and Work Incentives," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 627-651, September.
    12. Garcia-Louzao, Jose & Hospido, Laura & Ruggieri, Alessandro, 2023. "Dual returns to experience," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Zsolt Csáfordi & László Lőrincz & Balázs Lengyel & Károly Miklós Kiss, 2020. "Productivity spillovers through labor flows: productivity gap, multinational experience and industry relatedness," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 86-121, February.
    14. Nicole Bosch & Bas ter Weel, 2013. "Labour-market outcomes of older workers in the Netherlands: Measuring job prospects using the occupational age structure," CPB Discussion Paper 234.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    15. Parent, Daniel, 2002. "Matching, human capital, and the covariance structure of earnings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 375-404, July.
    16. William J. Carrington & Bruce Fallick, 2014. "Why Do Earnings Fall with Job Displacement?," Working Papers (Old Series) 1405, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    17. Peter F. Orazem & Marvin L. Bouillon & Benjamin M. Doran, 2004. "Long‐Term Attachments and Long‐Run Firm Rates of Return," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(2), pages 314-333, October.
    18. Regula Geel & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2009. "Occupational Mobility Within and Between Skill Clusters: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Skill-Weights Approach," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0047, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Mar 2011.
    19. Nicole Bosch & Bas ter Weel, 2013. "Labour-Market Outcomes of Older Workers in the Netherlands: Measuring Job Prospects Using the Occupational Age Structure," De Economist, Springer, vol. 161(2), pages 199-218, June.
    20. Stéphane Auray, David Fuller & Damba lkhagvasuren & Antoine Terracol, 2014. "A Dynamic Analysis of Sectoral Mobility, Worker Mismatc and the Wage-Tenure Profiles," Working Papers 2014-12, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    human capital; skills; on-the-job training;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • M53 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Training

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bic:journl:v:9:y:2009:i:1:p:39-54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anna Zasova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/biceplv.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.