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This paper estimates the causal effect of education on entrepreneurship choice in Canada taking into account the endogeneity of education. The data come from the General and Social Surveys (2000-2009). [The author consider] the effect of two extreme education levels: university and some/no education. Regressions are based on fixed effects with two-stage least squares. [The author finds] that university education positively impacts entrepreneurship but some/no education reduces self-employment propensity. Implications for entrepreneurship are discussed.

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Globalization is putting increasing pressure on jobs in the United Kingdom, particularly among less skilled activities. The European response through the Lisbon Strategy has been diffuse, while UK policy appears much more focused, concentrating on the need to raise education and skill levels. The present paper examines the transition towards a more highly qualified workforce in the United Kingdom, including an assessment of probable future developments given recent trends towards greater participation in higher education. It describes two complementary forecasting exercises, whereby a stock-flow model is used to produce UK-wide estimates and, then, a multi-logit equation is used to disaggregate these forecasts by region. The result is a set of estimates of the likely developments in the pattern of qualification attainment across the different parts of the United Kingdom, running through to 2014. It focuses upon the numbers of individuals broken down by level of qualification, gender, age and region. These forecasts suggest that, based on past trends (and consistent with meeting government targets), there will be substantial increases in the numbers and proportions of more qualified individuals and corresponding reductions among the less qualified. Further policy initiatives that may result from the Leitch Review [indexed at TD/IRD 88.157] are likely to further accentuate these changes.

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This paper seeks to analyse the relationship between wages and education at a European level, using a quantile regression in order to be able to extend the study along the whole wage distribution. This analysis is carried out for a sample of 14 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom), using the European Community Household Panel data-set. The paper aims to investigate whether the relationship between wages and education at European level is homogeneous and stable through time by running regressions for average and current (log) wages. Policy implications are derived.

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Students in many countries face increased costs of education in the form of direct payments and future tax liabilities and, as a consequence, their education decisions have taken on a greater financial dimension. This has refocused attention on obtaining meaningful estimates of the return to education. Routinely these returns are estimated as the additional earnings derived by an individual following their acquisition of an additional one year of education. However, the use of earnings data in this context is not without methodological problems including likely attenuation and ability bias in measuring the earnings/education relationship, issues concerning the appropriate rate of discount to apply to observed earnings gains and the appropriateness of using years-of-education as the measure of educational attainment. In this paper we explore the use of an alternative means of assessing returns to education by examining shifts in the likelihood of gaining 'labour market success' from various levels of educational qualification within the framework of an ordered logit model. This method offers three distinct advantages: it favours the use of data from the sample of anonymised records of the 2001 Census for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which, in turn, allows the joint consideration of most of the control variables thought to influence returns to education; it focuses upon the prime source of pecuniary returns to education (labour market success); and it gives expression to the 'screening device' and the 'credentials' aspects of education by focusing upon the importance of qualifications gained rather than the number of years spent in education.

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While it might be expected that demand for schooling will depend positively on the economic returns to education (ER) in the local labor market, in fact there is theoretical ambiguity about the sign of the schooling-ER relationship when households are liquidity-constrained. Whether the relationship is positive or negative depends on which effect dominates - the positive substitution effect of an increase in ER on years of education, or the negative income effect. For India, we find a positive relationship between the rate of return to education for adults in the local labor market and school attainment of girls and non-poor boys. The size of the effect of ER on years of education acquired is large for some groups. However, for poor boys the negative income effect dominates the positive substitution effect. Thus, while improved economic incentives for acquiring education have a positive impact on educational attainment of girls and non-poor boys, they worsen the educational attainment of poor boys. Policy implications are discussed.

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This paper reports labour market returns to education in Bangladesh using data from recent nationwide household survey. Returns are estimated separately for rural and urban samples, males, females and private-sector employees. Substantial heterogeneity in returns is observed; for example, estimates are higher for urban (than rural sample) and female samples (compared with their male counterparts). Our ordinary least square estimates of returns to education are robust to control for types of schools attended by individuals and selection into waged work.

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This paper estimates the returns to education for adult male workers in regular and casual wage employment using Indian national survey data at three points in time spanning almost two decades. Both standard and augmented Mincerian wage equations are estimated using a set of human capital measures and other controls after addressing the issue of potential selection bias. This paper finds that the returns to education are significantly different for the two types of workers - while casual workers face at best flat returns to education, the returns to education for regular workers are positive and U-shaped with respect to education levels. There is also some evidence of a widening wage gap between regular workers with graduate and primary education that could possibly be a consequence of trade liberalization and other reforms pursued during the 1990s.

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Using a representative sample of Spanish individuals, we explore the effects of workers' education on self-assessed satisfaction with diverse specific aspects of their jobs. We find that the effects of education level on job satisfaction differ, both in size and direction, according to the aspect of the job considered, especially after controlling for actual job attributes and other workers' characteristics. We also find that workers' perceptions of the match between education and employment are relevant as determinants of job satisfaction irrespective of workers' education level.

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This paper directly tests for differences in returns to education between the employed and self-employed in Hong Kong. Using a step-function, we find significantly smaller returns for the self-employed, suggesting that in the highly competitive labour market of Hong Kong, education plays a signaling role. This pattern persists for both genders, when accounting for self-selection into employment status and when accounting for self-employed professionals who signal.

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The notion that the knowledge and skills embodied in individuals contribute to the creation of economic and social benefits is not a new concept. But in practice little is known about the extent and relative influence of how different learning activities contribute to the formation of one's knowledge and skills, and in turn their relative influence in generating different kinds of benefits. Studies either focus on one form of learning or the other, and for the most part, they tend to focus on indicators of formal education. To improve the understanding of how education and learning lead to the creation of economic and social benefits, a comprehensive approach drawing on all the potential sources of knowledge and skills should be applied. Accordingly, the primary objective of the present article is to measure the relative influence of engaging in various learning activities - spanning the 'life-wide' spectrum of learning - on economic and social benefits. The study presents a conceptual framework and uses data from the Canadian Adult Literacy Survey to estimate corresponding structural models. The findings provide support for the hypothesis formulated; namely, that the relationship between formal education and economic and social outcomes is complex, with confounding effects. The results indicate that different types of learning activities taken for different reasons lead to different kinds of benefits. The latter finding suggests a potential trade-off between attaining economic and social benefits through different types of learning activities that are taken for either job-related or personal interest-related reasons. The article concludes that further in-depth analyses are required to improve the understanding of the complex relationship between various learning activities and the benefits they generate.

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