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The Risk-Return Trade-Off in Human Capital Investment

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Author Info
Charlotte Christiansen
Juanna Schröter Joensen () (Department of Economics, University of Aarhus, Denmark)

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Abstract

In this paper we analyze investments in human capital assets in a way which is standard for financial assets, but not (yet) for human capital assets. We study mean-variance plots of human capital assets. We compare the properties of human capital returns using a performance measure and by sing tests for mean-variance spanning. A risk-return trade-off is revealed, hich is not only related to the length of education but also to the type of education. We identify a range of educations that are efficient in terms of investment goods, and a range of educations that are inefficient, and may be chosen for consumption purposes.

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Paper provided by School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus in its series Economics Working Papers with number 2006-02.

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Length: 40
Date of creation: 01 Feb 2006
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Handle: RePEc:aah:aarhec:2006-02

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Related research
Keywords: Educational Choice Efficient Frontier Human Capital Investment Mean-Variance Analysis

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Angel De la Fuente & Juan F. Jimeno, 2005. "The Private and Fiscal Returns to Schooling and the Effect of Public Policies on Private Incentives to Invest in Education: A General Framework and Some Results for the EU," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Kristin Kleinjans, 2008. "Do Gender Differences in Preferences for Competition Matter for Occupational Expectations?," Economics Working Papers 2008-09, School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus. [Downloadable!]
  3. Paolo Buonanno & Dario Pozzoli, 2007. "Risk Aversion and College Subject," Working Papers 0707, University of Bergamo, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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