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This paper examines how changes in immigration policy levers actually affect the skill characteristics of immigrant arrivals using a unique Canadian immigrant landings database. The paper identifies some hypotheses on the possible effects on immigrant skill characteristics of the total immigration rate, the point system weights and immigrant class weights. The “skill” characteristics examined are level of education, age, and fluency in either English or French. Regressions are used to test the hypotheses from Canadian landings data for 1980–2001. It is found that (i) the larger the inflow rate of immigrants the lower the average skill level of the arrivals, (ii) increasing the proportion of skill-evaluated immigrants raises average skill levels, and (iii) increasing point system weights on a specific skill dimension indeed has the intended effect of raising average skill levels in this dimension among arriving principal applicants.

Purpose – In an era of increased public accountability, higher education institutions are expected to make greater contributions to local and regional economic development. First, this essay aims to provide a conceptual overview of the conventional approaches to economic development employed by research universities and community colleges. Second, a proposition for a novel approach to economic development that centers on direct collaboration between research universities and community colleges is introduced.

Method/approach – The first section of the essay relies on a critical overview of the scholarly literature that addresses the contributions of research universities and community colleges to local and regional economic development initiatives. The critique draws attention to the counter-productivity of institutional focus on national and global trends and dependency on existing business and industry. The second section includes a proposition for an alternate higher education vision for economic development that builds on the strengths and accounts for the weaknesses of current models as identified in the literature review.

Practical implications – The chapter introduces an alternate higher education vision for higher education that will be valuable to scholars and institutional leaders interested in examining and enhancing the capacities of research universities and community college to contribute to the vibrancy of local and regional economies.

Originality/value of paper – The primary contributions of the chapter are the overview of the higher education literature specific to local and regional economic development and the proposal of a novel economic development vision for higher education that involves institutional collaboration and local and regional positioning and strengthening.

Japan has long occupied a unique place in East Asia and continues to do so in an era of increased global interconnectivity. Beginning with the Meiji Restoration (1868), it became the first in the region to make a decisive, sustained, and highly successful attempt to “modernize” its political, economic, and social structures, thereby largely avoiding Western domination. This particular historical trajectory built directly on social foundations laid during the prolonged closure of the Tokugawa period and largely allowed Japan free reign to craft its own version of modernity, educational and otherwise. One result of this conscious, directed process of “catch-up” was an impressive “compression” of the transition to modernity – a phenomenon that had stretched out over hundreds of years in most Western countries – to little more than a half century (Kariya, 2010); a feat unmatched by any country in the first half of the twentieth century. Following the devastation of the Second World War, Japan redoubled its efforts to “catch-up” and through a combination of high birth rates following the war, export-driven economic growth leading to an explosion of manufacturing jobs, a commitment to egalitarian growth and full employment, and the creation of an educational meritocracy that meticulously selected the country's best and brightest, the country quickly moved up the value-added chain until, by the early 1980s, the Japanese economy was globally dominant (Katz, 1998; Okita, 1992). As such, by the 1980s, Japan became unique, first, in being the only country in the region whose social conditions facilitated genuine comparison with the “advanced” countries of the West and, second, a model for “modernization” that other countries in the region could emulate, first the four Asian Tigers and then (although rarely explicitly) China in the post-Mao “Reform and Opening” period (Rappleye, 2007; Kojima, 2000).

The EU‐funded research project “Fifobi – Fit for Business – developing business competencies in school” (2009‐2012) focused on the implementation of economic education in seven European countries. The purpose of the project and this paper is to investigate the current programmes that exist within the final two years of compulsory education in the field of business education and pre‐vocational education.

In year one a thorough analysis of the curriculum was carried out. After a comprehensive evaluation personal interviews with teachers followed in year two and in year three personal interviews with representatives of the Social Partnership were conducted.

The Austrian curricula show a definite and clear focus on basic knowledge in economics. Social and self‐competences have to be taught in all subjects, but are poorly linked to the content of individual subjects. Many aspects of social and self‐competences are part of career orientation classes. A relatively small focus, however, is put on entrepreneurial thinking and acting.

The main objective for next steps is to draw up a new strategy of teaching to develop economic, business, social‐ and self competencies with the focus on responsibility for a local, regional, national and global level. The aim is to activate children and young people for global relations, formations of critical thinking and acting in economic education and global education.

The study examines the impact of socio-economic governance on economic growth in Nigeria. It measures socio-economic governance from the perspective of fiscal policy, using indicators such as investment in education, research and development (R&D) and health.

This study employs the Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) Bound Testing method to achieve its objective.

The study finds that socio-economic policies aimed at increasing investment in education are crucial for Nigeria’s long-term economic growth. Additionally, investment in R&D positively impacts economic growth. However, the study reveals that investment in health negatively affects economic growth in Nigeria in the long run. This suggests that if a country overinvests in health, it may divert resources from other vital sectors such as education, infrastructure and R&D, which can hinder overall economic growth. The short-run parameter is, however, not statistically significant in this study.

The study’s originality lies in its exploration of the relationship between socio-economic governance and economic growth in Nigeria, specifically from a fiscal policy perspective. It highlights the importance of investing in education and R&D for long-term economic growth. Additionally, the finding that overinvestment in health may have a negative impact on long-term economic growth provides valuable insight for policymakers in Nigeria and other developing countries. Overall, this study’s findings can be beneficial for policymakers and researchers interested in the intersection between socio-economic governance and economic growth in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the international financial and economic crisis in 2008 produced a new economic era with significant implications for enterprise and entrepreneurship education. It aims to explore the changing influences on entrepreneurship education and learning, what is the new era in entrepreneurship, the consequences of changing economic, social and cultural movements, and how entrepreneurship education and learning can respond to these challenges.

The research approach is informed by practitioner‐based educational enquiry, reflective practice and research, education and participation with groups of universities, educators, students, entrepreneurs and other groups during the economic crisis.

The paper proposes that the nature of entrepreneurship is changing in response to social and cultural movements in the new economic era. Ethical and environmental concerns are creating a discourse of responsible entrepreneurship informed by social entrepreneurship. The paper conceptualises this as the shift from an “old” to a “new” entrepreneurship.

Implications for the future development of enterprise and entrepreneurial education are presented, referring to the factors shaping change, including the social and economic context, learners, learning and teaching, and institutional change.

The paper presents new thinking on the future challenges and directions for entrepreneurship and related education in the context of fundamental economic change.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of the green talent dividend on China’s economic growth and regional differences using a theoretical derivation of the Cobb–Douglas production function.

This study develops a measurement model with human capital based on Chinese inter-provincial panel data for 2001–2017, and analyzes the influences on economic growth of employees’ education level, per capita material capital, green labor participation rate and green jobs. The study explores the impact of the green talent dividend on regional economic growth for different regions.

Employees’ education level, per capita material capital, green labor participation rate and green jobs promote China’s economic growth. The dependency ratio hinders economic growth. The green labor participation rate impacts economic growth more than green jobs do. Furthermore, the scale of green talent in China and its dividend effect are regionally unbalanced. Therefore, to fully release the dividend of green talent, the green labor participation rate should be improved to promote the rational flow of talent among regions.

These findings shed light on the talent dividend, provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of relevant talent policies, and show that the demographic dividend can be transformed into the green talent dividend, which has practical significance for the sustainable development of China’s economy given its aging population.

This study provides a macro perspective on the green talent dividend’s impact on economic growth. The Cobb–Douglas production function in this study differs from the traditional micro perspective on green labor.

Over the past two decades, scholars have noted an increasing global convergence in the policy and practice of education that predominantly contains Western ideals of mass schooling serving as a model for national school systems (Bieber & Martens, 2011; Goldthorpe, 1997; Spring, 2008). A number of transnational organizations contribute disproportionately to global educational discourse, particularly the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) through its international comparative performance measure, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This study conducted a critical discourse analysis of the OECD document PISA 2012 Results: Excellence through Equity (OECD, 2013) to examine the ways that PISA and the OECD conceive of educational equity in a global context. Given the growing convergence of global educational policy, the way that transnational educational organizations address equity has crucial implications for the ways that the world intervenes in schooling to promote or diminish equitable outcomes. Analysis revealed that the OECD and the PISA foreground economistic notions of educational equity, which diminishes the role of other factors (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, immigration status, language) that mediate equity in schools. Findings and implications are discussed.