Research > Research Themes > Human Resources and Endowments > Human resource investments

In Review of Economic Studies, Greenwood shows how increased female labor force participation in the US follows from the consumer goods revolution. Also in Review of Economics and Statistics, Saiz shows that there is essentially no economic premium in the US for acquiring second-languages—as long as the first language is English! Natives and immigrants alike derive all the linguistic payoff available from speaking English. Soldo has several results based on the Mexican Health and Aging Survey that show the positive effects of early childhood investments on later life outcomes, e.g., maternal education and diminished prospects for adult diabetes. Mitchell has a great deal of research on life cycle earnings and savings; people do not necessarily save in accordance with seamless economic theory; there are a lot of non-transparencies and non-linearities in pension and insurance programs that affect people’s perceptions of the value of participation. Jacobs, with J. Glass, in Social Forces, finds that childhood religious conservatism is associated with diminished human capital acquisition and earlier family formation for white women (less so for black women), and Kao has examined race and immigrant differences in parenting and educational outcomes of young children using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. Hannum has been documenting in China the impact of poor vision on academic outcomes, parental health problems and access to schooling, and children's agency and academic outcomes.