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This study aims at providing a theoretical concept of human capital and its measurement that have been continually developed for decades and empirically testing the casual relationships between human capital, measured by educational spending, and economic growth of Thailand. The methodologies are through literature synthesis and qualitative analysis as well as time-series quantitative analysis; the data is annually collected during the period 1980 -2010. The finding indicates that human capital can be defined in different frameworks because its definition changes over time. Nonetheless, owing to a key attribute, it should be defined on a broader view and its spillover effects should be taken into account as well. The other finding is that the standard approaches to human capital measurement are cost-based, income-based and output-based. The empirical results suggest bidirectional causality between human capital and economic growth of Thailand but much clearer for the causation running from human capital to growth. As such, the policy implication is that if the government aims to achieve the long-run economic growth, both increasing the educational opportunity and improving the quality of education are imperative.

This paper examines the factors that influence the labor force participation of married women in the United States during 1975-2002, using multiple regressions with log specification. The results show that women earnings and life expectancy of women are not satisfactory indicators of whether married women should join the labor force. Nonetheless, there exist strong relationships between the decisions to work and men's income, unemployment rate, consumer durable goods to GDP ratio, women's schooling as well as divorce rate.

This paper aims at analyzing the determinants of intra-ASEAN labor migration to Thailand, for the period 2002-2010. We apply the well-known Hatton's migration model to our analysis. Having employed panel data through fixed effect model estimations, we find that the GDP gaps between Thailand and the migrant countries, migration stocks which reflect the existence of immigrant networks, and Thailand's migration worker policy all play a crucial role in explaining migration behaviors. A policy implication is that the government of Thailand should pay more attention to its coherent migration worker policy, since it affects the net migration rate, evidently.

Heterogeneity in the Production of Human Capital *We derive a tractable nonlinear earnings function which we estimate separately for each individual in the NLSY79 data. These estimates yield five important parameters for each individual: three ability measures (two representing the ability to learn and one the ability to earn), a rate of skill depreciation, and a time discount rate. In addition, we obtain a population wide estimate of the rental rate of human capital. To illustrate heterogeneity in the production of human capital, we plot the distribution of these parameters along with NLSY79 reported AFQT scores. By utilizing these parameters, we are able to verify a number of heretofore untested theorems based on the life-cycle human capital model. In addition, we are able to show how these human capital production function parameters relate to cognitive ability, personality traits, and family background. Among our results, we find: Black-white differences in ability are smaller than those exhibited in standardized tests. Blacks have higher time discount and skill depreciation rates than whites. Individuals with higher time discount rates and greater rates of skill depreciation have fewer years of school. Individuals with both a high internal locus of control and self-esteem exhibit greater ability, lower skill depreciation, and smaller time discount rates. Individuals inclined towards depression have higher time discount rates. Agreeable, open, conscientious and extrovert individuals have a greater ability to learn but not necessarily a greater ability to earn. Neurotic individuals have a lower ability to learn. Higher parental education is associated with a greater ability to learn, lower skill depreciation, and a smaller time discount rate. Educational stimuli, such as growing up in a household that subscribed to magazines, are associated with higher ability. Conversely, growing up poor is associated with lower ability.