CHSCR fosters high-quality research into issues that involve human and social capital - the stock of knowledge and skills embodied in people. The centre is engaged in collaborative and individual research into education, health, time allocation, labour markets, poverty and inequality, productivity and social-capital networks.
Work alongside CHSCR's leading economists. The centre offers opportunities for PhD candidates, collaborative research and consultancy services for businesses.
Research candidates
The Centre for Human & Social Capital Research fosters high-quality research into issues that involve aspects of human and social capital.
By drawing on a range of complementary skills, knowledge and research methodologies – theoretical, empirical and historical – the centre's economic experts engage in collaborative and individual research into:
What is human and social capital?
Human and social capital leads to increased productivity.
Human capital is the stock of knowledge and skills embodied in a person. It is nurtured through education, training, job searches, healthcare and migration.
Social capital is the access people have to groups or organisations in which members are likely to cooperate because of commonly held goals, attitudes or values. Such organisations include the CWA, Rotary, churches, clubs, and less formal relationships that provide support and mentoring.
The acquisition of human and social capital constitutes an investment – costs must be incurred now in the expectation that they will be recovered. Costs may be direct (out-of-pocket) or indirect (opportunities foregone).
Dr Chantel Carr
Research interests: architecture, design, and urban planning, and geography
Dr Silvia Mendolia
Research interests: labour economics, health economics, applied microeconometrics
Professor Martin O'Brien - Director
Research interests: older worker employment issues; ageing society policy; hidden unemployment; segmented labour market theory; econometrics
Associate Professor Alfredo Paloyo
Research interests: applied microeconomics, human capital, development economics, defense economics
Senior Professor Simon Ville
Research interests: principles of responsible commerce; economic policy; business history; economic history
Dr Oleg Yerokhin
Research interests: applied microeconomics; health economics; public economics
HDR Student Members
(back row, L to R) Jason Lindo, Peter Siminski, Alfredo Paloyo; (front row, L to R) Oleg Yerokhin, Martin O'Brien, Silvia Mendolia.
The Centre for Human & Social Capital Research (CHSCR) engages with external scholars, universities and businesses through research collaboration and consultancy. The centre also has opportunities for higher-degree research candidates.
CHSCR members are currently working together on several collaborative research projects, including:
CHSCR welcomes partnerships with universities or academics interested in joint research into issues that involve aspects of human and social capital, or to spend some time at the centre.
CHSCR's leading economic academics are available to conduct research on behalf of businesses and government.
To engage with the Centre for Human & Social Capital Research, please contact Professor Martin O’Brien.
The research centre provides an opportunity to work alongside leading economists. CHSCR members are available to supervise PhD students. Please contact Professor Martin O’Brien for more information.
Leading economic researchers at the Centre for Human & Social Capital Research draw on a range of complementary skills, knowledge and research methodologies – theoretical, empirical and historical – to conduct collaborative and individual research into:
2016–2018 ERA Tier Journal Publications
(only full Members included)
Tier A*
Cousley A., Siminski P. and Ville S. (forthcoming) ‘The Causal Effects of World War II Military Service,’ Journal of Economic History (accepted 19 Feb 2017)
Lindo J., Siminski P. and Swensen I. (forthcoming) ‘College Party Culture and Sexual Assault: Evidence from Big- time Sporting Events’, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (accepted 22 Jan 2017)
Lindo J., Siminski P. and Yerokhin O. 2016, ‘Breaking the Link Between Legal Access to Alcohol and Motor Vehicle Accidents: Evidence from New South Wales’, Health Economics, 25, 908-928
Johnston, D. W., Shields, M. A. & Siminski, P. 2016, 'Long-term health effects of Vietnam-era military service: A quasi-experiment using Australian conscription lotteries', Journal of Health Economics, vol. 45, pp. 12-26.
Tier A
Mendolia, S., Paloyo, A. R. & Walker, I. 2018, 'Heterogeneous effects of high school peers on educational outcomes', Oxford Economic Papers, vol. 70, no. 3, pp. 613-634.
Murray, C., Clark, R. G., Mendolia, S. & Siminski, P. 2018, 'Direct Measures of Intergenerational Income Mobility for Australia', The Economic Record, vol. 94, no. 307, pp. 445-468.
Panza, L., Ville, S. & Merrett, D. 2018, 'The drivers of firm longevity: age, size, profitability and survivorship of Australian corporations, 1901-1930', Business History, vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 157-177.
Ville, S. 2018, 'Firm Performance and Market Behaviour: The Scholarship of David Merrett', Australian Economic History Review: an Asia-Pacific journal of economic, business and social history, vol. 58, no. 3, pp. 222-232.
Coote, A., Haynes, A., Philp, J. & Ville, S. 2017, 'When Commerce, Science and Leisure Collaborated: the Nineteenth-Century Global Trade Boom in Natural History Collections', Journal of Global History, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 319-339.
Contini, D., Di Tommaso, M. & Mendolia, S. 2017, 'The gender gap in mathematics achievement: Evidence from Italian data', Economics of Education Review, vol. 58, pp. 32-42.
Cousley, A., Siminski, P. & Ville, S. 2017, 'The Effects of World War II Military Service: Evidence from Australia', The Journal of Economic History, vol. 77, no. 3, pp. 838-865.
Hasanah, A., Mendolia, S. & Yerokhin, O. 2017, 'Labour migration, food expenditure, and household food security in Eastern Indonesia', The Economic Record, vol. 93, no. 51, pp. 122-143.
Mendolia, S. & Siminski, P. 2017, 'Is education the mechanism through which family background affects economic outcomes? A generalised approach to mediation analysis', Economics of Education Review, vol. 59, pp. 1-12.
Van Phan, P., O’Brien, M., Mendolia, S. & Paloyo, A. 2017, 'National pro-poor spending programmes and their effect on income inequality and poverty: Evidence from Vietnam', Applied Economics, vol. 49, no. 55, pp. 5579-5590.
Ville, S. & Wright, C. 2017, 'Neither a Discipline nor a Colony: Renaissance and Re-imagination in Economic History', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 152-168.
Wright, C. & Ville, S. 2017, 'The evolution of an intellectual community through the words of its founders: recollections of Australia's economic history field', Australian Economic History Review: an Asia-Pacific journal of economic, business and social history, vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 345-367.
Wright, C. & Ville, S. 2017, 'Visualising the Interdisciplinary Research Field: The Life Cycle of Economic History in Australia', Minerva: a review of science, learning and policy, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 321-340.
Mendolia, S. & Siminski, P. 2016, 'New estimates of intergenerational mobility in Australia', The Economic Record, vol. 92, no. 298, pp. 361-373.
Mendolia, S., Tosh, A. & Yerokhin, O. 2016, 'Ethnic diversity and trust: new evidence from Australian data', The Economic Record, vol. 92, no. 299, pp. 648-665.
Paloyo, A. R., Rogan, S. & Siminski, P. M. 2016, 'The effect of supplemental instruction on academic performance: An encouragement design experiment', Economics of Education Review, vol. 55, pp. 57-69.
Siminski, P., Ville, S. & Paull, A. 2016, 'Does the military turn men into criminals? New evidence from Australia’s conscription lotteries', Journal of Population Economics, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 197-218.
Ville, S. & Merrett, D. 2016, 'Too big to fail: explaining the timing and nature of intervention in the Australian wool market, 1916-1991', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 62, no. 3, pp. 337-352.
Tier B
Kettlewell, N., Stavrunova, O. & Yerokhin, O. 2018, 'Premium subsidies and demand for private health insurance: results from a regression discontinuity design', Applied Economics Letters, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 96-101.
O’Brien, M., Markey, R. & Fernandez-Pol, J. 2018, 'The Short Run Impact of Penalty Rate Cuts on Employment Outcomes in Retail and Hospitality Sectors in Australia', Economic Papers: a journal of applied economics and policy, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 270-286.
Wright, C. & Ville, S. 2018, 'The university tea room: informal public spaces as ideas incubators', History Australia, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 236-254.
Paloyo, A. R. & Reichert, A. R. 2017, 'Biting Back at Malaria: Assessing Health-service Providers' Compliance with Treatment Guidelines', Review of Development Economics, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 591-626.
Burrows, S. & O’Brien, M. J. 2016, 'Youth as a reserve army of labour: Australia’s regional unemployment conundrum', Labour and Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 90-102.
Mendolia, S. 2016, 'Maternal working hours and the well-being of adolescent children: Evidence from British data', Journal of Family and Economic Issues, pp. 1-15.
Mitze, T., Paloyo, A. R. & Alecke, B. 2016, 'Is there a purchase limit on regional growth? A quasi-experimental evaluation of investment grants using matching techniques', International Regional Science Review, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 388-412.
Tier C
Arjomandi, A., Seufert, J., O’Brien, M. & Anwar, S. 2018, 'Active Teaching Strategies and Student Engagement: A Comparison of Traditional and Non-traditional Business Students', e-Journal of Business Education and Scholarship of Teaching, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 120-140.
O’Brien, M. & Freund, K. 2018, 'Lessons learned from introducing social media use in undergraduate economics research', International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 4-16.
O’Brien, M. & Burrows, S. 2017, 'Recycling older steelworkers: Post-redundancy job-mobility experiences of workers from BlueScope Steel Port Kembla', Australian Bulletin of Labour, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 21-44.
Unranked
Ville, S. 2017, 'Britain as a maritime civilisation: economy, culture and place in the making of a seafaring nation', Ocean Discourse, vol. 6, pp. 241-268.
Ville, S. 2016, 'Trade with China: Is a dominant trading partner damaging for economic development?', Arena Magazine, no. 140, pp. 5-6.
Other Publications
Mendolia, S. and Paloyo, A. 2018, 'Will sorting classrooms by ability improve marks? It depends on the mix', The Conversation.
Siminski, P. M. 2016, 'How to get a better bang for the taxpayers' buck in all sectors, not only Indigenous programs', The Conversation, vol. 23 Aug, pp. 1-4.
Ville, S. 2016, 'Budget explainer: why the federal budget falls in May', The Conversation, vol. 24 March, pp. 1-3.
Ville, S. 2016, 'Coal was king of the Industrial Revolution, but not always the path to a modern economy', The Conversation, vol. 9 June, pp. 1-3.
External grants awarded in 2018
Alfredo Paloyo. ‘Recent trends in the gender gap in the labor market in the Philippines’. Philippines Project Small Research Grants Scheme, $13,000.
Internal grants awarded in 2018
Silvia Mendolia and Alfredo Paloyo (with Prof Ian Walker, Lancaster University). Strategic University Collaboration Grant, $9,535.’The Impact of Religiosity and Personality Traits on Adolescent Well-being and Achievements’.
Martin O’Brien. ‘Penalty rate reform and employment outcomes in the retail and hospitality sectors in Australia’. Partnership Matching Grants, $20,000 (plus $35,000 matched funding from ACTU, Shop Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association and United Voice).
Oleg Yerokhin and Silvia Mendolia (with Prof Paul McNamee, University of Aberdeen). ‘Health and Wellbeing within the family’. Strategic University Collaboration Grant, $9,535.
External grants awarded in 2017
David Johnston, Benno Torgler, Peter Siminski, Silvia Mendolia and David Savage. Administering Organisation: Monash University. ‘Microeconomic effects of Australian natural disasters’. Australian Research Council Discovery Projects, $403,500.
Peter Siminski, Silvia Mendolia and Nathan Kettlewell. ‘Evaluation of the Targeted Early Numeracy (TEN) Program’. Government funded research, NSW Department of Education, $161,621
Simon Ville, with Australian Museum, Macleay Museum and Jude Philp, Anne Clarke, Robin Torrence, Deirdre Coleman, Elizabeth Carter and Vanessa Finney. ‘Reconstructing museum specimen data through the pathways of global commerce’. Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, $403,060
Internal grants awarded in 2017
Amir Arjomandi, Charles Harvie and Martin O’Brien. ‘Postgraduate Research capacity Building’. University Internationalisation Links Grant Scheme, $6236
Silvia Mendolia, Oleg Yerokhin and Paul McNamee, University of Aberdeen. ‘The impact of health changes and health behaviours on life satisfaction’. University Internationalisation Links Grant Scheme, $14,700
Martin O’Brien, Eduardo Pol and Ray Markey. ‘Analysing the influence of penalty rates changes on employment and living standards of retail and hospitality sector employees in Australia’. Faculty of Business Seed Grant, $25,000.
Simon Ville, Belinda Gibbons, Oriana Price, Emma Heffernan, Mary Johnsson and John Talbot. ‘An investigation into the sustainable economic practices of ecovillages’. University of Wollongong Global Challenges Project.
Markey, R, O’Brien, M and McIvor, J 2016, “Second Supplementary Report: Casual and Part-Time Employment in Australia” prepared on behalf of the Australia Council of Trade Unions for the Four Yearly Review of Modern Awards – Casual employment and Part-time employment (AM2014/196 and AM2014/197)
O’Brien, M 2016, “Fourth Supplementary Report: Casual and Part-Time Employment in Australia" prepared on behalf of the Australia Council of Trade Unions for the Four Yearly Review of Modern Awards – Casual employment and Part-time employment (AM2014/196 and AM2014/197)
Paloyo, A.; Rogan, S., Siminski, P. 2016, "The Causal Effects of the Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) on Educational Outcomes" - Funded by the Australian Government’s Higher Education Participation and Partnership Programme (HEPPP).
Mendolia, S. and Siminski, P. 2015, "The Role of Education in Intergenerational Economic Mobility in Australia", Commissioned by the NSW Government Office of Education – Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE)
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Professor Martin O'Brien, Director, Centre for Human & Social Capital Research