Course Title
Course Code
Recommended Study Year
No. of Credits/Semester
Mode of Tuition
Teaching Hours
tutorial/joint-session per week
Category in Major Prog.
Discipline
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Education and Manpower Policy
ECO315
Second/Third year
3
Lecture & Tutorial
One 2-hour lecture and one 1-hour
:
:
Stream elective
Economics
Lecturer: Dr. Wei, Xiangdong (SO217, Tel. 26167205; Email: xdwei@ln.edu.hk)
Office Hours: Tuesday: 14:30-16:20; Wednesday: 11:30-13:20; Thursday:13:30- 14:20,
16:30-17:20; and by appointment.
Learning Objectives:
This course provides students with an introduction to the economics of education and
manpower. It analyses the roles of government policies in the areas of education and
manpower, with reference to the current policy debate in Hong Kong on these matters.
Upon the completion of this course, students should be able to understand when and why
government policies are needed in the areas of education and manpower, and how well
policies can be expected to work.
Teaching Approach:
The teaching of this course takes forms of lectures, joint-sessions and tutorials. Lectures
and joint-sessions are delivered by the lecturer. An outline of each lecture will be made
available to students in advance. Apart from lectures, each week there will be either a
one-hour joint-session or a one-hour tutorial. Joint sessions will be used for
demonstration on how theories can be applied to solve real world problems. In tutorials,
students are required to form a small group (2-3 people) and each group will be
responsible for a 20- minutes presentation in one tutorial and a 15- minutes comment on
others' presentation in another tutorial. All students are encouraged to express their views
in tutorials and good performance will be awarded extra marks towards the total mark.
There is unfortunately no single textbook that can cover the whole course. So students
should read books and articles given in the following reading list.
Assessment method:
The continuous assessment method as well as final examination will be used to assess
student performance in this course.
Continuous assessment:
A mid-term examination:
20%
Seminar presentation and commenting:
16%
Course attendance:
4%
Sub-total:
40%
Final examination:
60%
Total:
100%
Main Textbooks:
Enrenberg, R. and R.Smith (2000). Modern Labor Economics, 7th ed, Addison-Wesley.
Polachek, S.W. and W.S.Siebert (1993). The Economics of Earnings, Cambridge
University Press.
Useful References:
Blaug, Mark. (1992). The Economic Value of Education, Edward Elgar.
Carnoy, M. 1995. International Encyclopedia of Economics of Education, 2nd ed.
Pergamon.
Chung, Yue-Ping and Richard Yue-Chin Wong (eds.) 1992. The Economics and
Financing of Hong Kong Education, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
Farnen, R.F. and Heinz Sunker (eds.) 1997. The Politics, Sociology and Economics of
Education: Interdisciplinary and Comparative Perspectives, New York: St. Martins
Press, Inc.
Low, L., Heng, T.M. & Wong, S.T. (1991). Economics of Education and Manpower
Development. McGraw-Hill Book Co.
Suen, Wing (1997).Labour Market in a Dynamic Economy, Hong Kong Economic Policy
Studies Series, City University of Hong Kong.
Indicative Content & Reading list:
Week 1: Introduction
Blaug, Mark (1985). "Where are we now in the economics of education?", Economics of
Education Review, 4(1): pp17-28. (Also in Blaug)
Carnoy, Section I: The Economics of Education, Then and Now.
Week 2: Human capital concepts
Polachek & Siebert, Ch 1,2.
Week 3: Schooling
Ehrenberg & Smith, Ch 9 (Section I & II).
Polachek & Siebert, Ch 3.
Ashenfelter, O. & Krueger, A. (1994). “Estimates of the economic return to schooling
from a new sample of twins.” American Economic Review, 84:pp.1157-73.
Week 4: Post-school investment
Ehrenberg & Smith, Ch 5 (Section IV).
Polachek & Siebert, Ch 4.
Chung, Yue-ping. Economic Returns to Vocational and Technical Education, in Chung &
Wong.
Week 5: Human capital vs. signaling model of education
Ehrenberg & Smith, Ch 9 (Section III).
Weiss, Andrew (1995). "Human Capital vs. Signaling Explanations of Wages", Journal
of Economic Perspectives, 9(4): pp133-154.
Week 6: Pay and productivity
Ehrenberg & Smith, Ch 11 (Section V).
Lazear, E.P. (1992). "Compensation, Productivity, and the New Economics of
Personnel." in Research Frontiers in Industrial Relations, ed. David Lewin, Olivia
S.Mitchell, and Perter D.Sherer, Madison, Wis.: Industrial Relations Research
Association.
Rebitzer, J.B. (1993). "Radical Political Economy and the Economics of Labor Markets",
Journal of Economic Literature, 31(3): pp1405-1429.
Week 7: Labour market discrimination
Ehrenberg & Smith, Ch 12
Ho, Lok-Sang, Wei, Xiangdong & Voon, Thomas (1999). "Age Discrimination in the
Labour Market: Facts or Fiction", International Employment Relations Review, 5(1),
pp.43-61.
Sung, Yun-Wing, Zhang, Junsen and Chan, Chi-shing (2001). “Gender Wage
Differentials.” Pacific Economic Review, 6(3):pp345-60.
Week 8: Human capital investment and economic growth
Hicks, N.L. "Education and Economic Growth", in Carnoy.
Temple, Jonathan R. (2001) “Generalizations that aren't? Evidence on education and
growth.” European Economic Review,
45(4):pp. 905-18.
Psacharopoulos, George (1984). "The Contribution of Education to Economic Growth:
International Comparisons", in John W. Kendrick (ed.), International Comparison of
Productivity and Causes of the Slowdown, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger/American
Enterprise Institute, pp 335-55. (Also in Blaug)
Week 9: Work mobility and human capital investment
Ehrenberg & Smith, Ch 10
Grubel, H.G. "Economics of Brain Drain", in Carnoy.
Borjas, G. (1994). "The Economics of Immigration", Journal of Economic Literature,
32(4): pp1667-1717.
Week 10: Equity and efficiency of education policy
Lott, John R., Jr (1987). "Why is Education Publicly Provided? A Critical Survey", Cato
Journal, 7(2): pp475-501. (Also in Blaug)
Peltzman, S. (1973). "The Effect of Government Subsidies-in-kind on Private
Expenditures: The Case of Higher Education", Journal of Political Economy, 81: pp1-27.
Week 11: Private vs public investment in training
Brown, C. (1990). "Empirical Evidence on Private Training", Research in Labor
Economics, 11, J.A.I. Press: pp97-113. Also in Ashenfelter, O.C. & LaLonde, R.J. (eds)
The Economics of Training, Volume II, Edward Edgar Publishing Ltd. 1996.
LaLonde, R.J. (1995). "The Promise of Public Sector-Sponsored Training Programs",
Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(2): pp149-68.
Suen, W. & Chan, W. (2001). “Long-term Effectiveness of the Hong Kong Employees
Retraining Programme.” Working Paper, University of Hong Kong.
Week 12: The role of manpower planing
Low, Heng & Wong, Ch. 3.
Richards, P. and Amjad, R. (Eds.) 1994. New Approaches to Manpower Planning and
Analysis. ILO Geneva. Ch. 1 & 2.
Presentation Topics:
Tutorials will be conducted every alternative week. In tutorials, one group of students are
asked to make a 20 minutes presentation on a pre-specified topic and another group of
students are asked to spend 15 minutes to comment on the presentation. After that, other
students are encouraged to participate the discussion of the topic. Student will have to
choose one topic for presentation and another topic for commenting on others'
presentation from the following list:
1. How complete is the analogy between human and physical capital investment?
2. Discuss the problems researchers experience when estimating the returns to human
capital.
3. "Education is indeed associate with increased earnings, and perhaps even with
increased productivity, but it does not cause them." Comment.
4. What are the roles of human capital in a nation's economic growth?
5. Why can workers with similar level of human capital be paid so differently by different
employers?
6. What are the rationales for the government to provide public education? And what are
the problems associated with such a policy?