Search Results | VOCEDplus, the international tertiary education and research database

What happened to the PISA 2000 participants five years later?

The transition from school-to-work has been a burning issue in most countries for the last decades. So far research ... Show more
The transition from school-to-work has been a burning issue in most countries for the last decades. So far research on this topic has not been conclusive, and it is still not clear whether transition problems are just individual, linked to the type of education followed at upper-secondary level, or just a prolongation of problems arising from poor school performance during compulsory education. This paper uses a unique Swiss longitudinal data-set, which includes information on PISA 2000 scores and the pathways chosen after completing compulsory school. Descriptive results show that students in vocational training, who obtained lower PISA results, are significantly more likely to be in an inadequate employment situation two years after finishing vocational training. Further analysis shows, however, that it is the type of vocational training followed at upper-secondary level that is decisive for the success in the transition. Nevertheless, individual PISA scores have an indirect impact on the transition results, as they are an important factor explaining which pupils are more likely to get into an intellectually demanding vocational training and which ones are not.
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Authors: Bertschy, Kathrin; Cattaneo, Alejandra; Wolter, Stefan C.

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: Europe; Switzerland

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Vocational education and training; Youth; Performance ... [+] Show more
The effect of integration policies on the time until regular employment of newly arrived immigrants: evidence from Denmark

We analyse the effect of active labour-market programmes on the hazard rate into regular employment for newly arriv ... Show more
We analyse the effect of active labour-market programmes on the hazard rate into regular employment for newly arrived immigrants using the timing-of-events duration model. We take account of language course participation and progression in destination country language skills. We use rich administrative data from Denmark. We find substantial lock-in effects of participation in active labour-market programmes. Post programme effects on the hazard rate to regular employment are significantly positive for wage subsidy programmes, but not for other types of programmes. For language course participants, improvement in language proficiency has significant and substantial positive effects on the hazard rate to employment.
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Authors: Clausen, Jens; Heinesen, Eskil; Hummelgaard, Hans; Husted, Leif ... [+] Show more

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: Europe; Denmark

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Participation; Labour market; Employment ... [+] Show more
Trade openness and the demand for skills: evidence from Turkish microdata

In this paper we report evidence on the relationship between trade openness, technology adoption and relative deman ... Show more
In this paper we report evidence on the relationship between trade openness, technology adoption and relative demand for skilled labour in the Turkish manufacturing sector, using firm-level data over the period 1980-2001. In a dynamic panel data setting using a unique database of 17,462 firms, we estimate an augmented cost share equation whereby the wage bill share of skilled workers in a given firm is related to international exposure and technology adoption. Overall, results suggest that trade openness and technology play a key role in shifting the demand for labour towards more skilled workers within each firm. Technology-related variables (domestic R&D expenditures and technological transfer from abroad) are positive and significantly related to skill upgrading, as are the involvement of foreign capital in a firm's ownership and the propensity to export. Moreover, firms belonging to those sectors that most raised their imported inputs also experienced a higher increase in the labour cost share of skilled workers. This finding is consistent with the idea that imports by a middle-income country imply a transfer of new technologies that are more skill-intensive than those previously in use in domestic markets. This idea is reinforced by the finding that only imported inputs from industrialised countries - where the potential for innovation diffusion comes from - enter the estimated regression significantly.
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Authors: Meschi, Elena; Taymaz, Erol; Vivarelli, Marco

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: Asia; Turkey

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Globalisation; Skills and knowledge; Technology ... [+] Show more
Estimating complementarity between education and training

In this paper, we formulate and estimate a structural model of post-schooling training that explicitly allows for p ... Show more
In this paper, we formulate and estimate a structural model of post-schooling training that explicitly allows for possible complementarity between initial schooling levels and returns to training. Precisely, the wage outcome equation depends on accumulated schooling and on the incidence of training. The effect of training on wage growth depends on individual permanent endowments as well as on education. We find evidence of statistically significant complementarity, i.e. the higher educated receive the highest return to the MBA-type training considered here.
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Authors: Belzil, Christian; Hansen, Jorgen; Kristensen, Nicolai

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: Europe; Denmark

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Participation; Outcomes; Statistics ... [+] Show more
A nonparametric examination of capital-skill complementarity

This paper uses nonparametric kernel methods to construct observation-specific elasticities of substitution for a b ... Show more
This paper uses nonparametric kernel methods to construct observation-specific elasticities of substitution for a balanced panel of 73 developed and developing countries to examine the capital-skill complementarity hypothesis. The exercise shows some support for capital-skill complementarity, but the strength of the evidence depends upon the definition of skilled labor and the elasticity of substitution measure being used. The added flexibility of the nonparametric procedure is also able to uncover that the elasticities of substitution vary across countries, groups of countries and time periods.
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Authors: Henderson, Daniel J.

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Research; Skills and knowledge; Statistics ... [+] Show more
From giving birth to paid labor: the effects of adult education for prime-aged mothers

Women without work after childbirth are at risk of losing their connection to the labor market. However, they may p ... Show more
Women without work after childbirth are at risk of losing their connection to the labor market. However, they may participate in adult education programs. We analyze the effect of this on the duration to work and on the wage rate, by applying conditional difference-in-differences approaches. We use Swedish matched longitudinal register data sets covering the full population. The Swedish adult education program is unprecedented in its size, and enrollment is universally available at virtually no cost. We focus on low-skilled women who have recently given birth. We take account of program accessibility, selection issues, course heterogeneity, the income received during adult education, parental leave, and child care fees. To understand the enrollment decision from the mothers' point of view, we use the estimates to calibrate a job search model.
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Authors: Bergemann, Annette; Berg, Gerard J. van den

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: Europe; Sweden

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Participation; Adult and community education; Outcomes ... [+] Show more
Selection criteria and the skill composition of immigrants: a comparative analysis of Australian and US employment immigration

This paper uses survey data on employment immigrants in Australia and the United States to identify the main determ ... Show more
This paper uses survey data on employment immigrants in Australia and the United States to identify the main determinants of the size and skill composition of employment immigrants to developed countries. Our approach emphasizes the key roles of world prices of skills and country proximity. Our empirical results are consistent with the view that these factors, rather than the nuances of selection systems, dominate. There are five main findings: (1) higher skill prices in sending countries decrease the number of immigrants but increase their average schooling; (2) more-distant countries send fewer but more skilled immigrants; (3) given skill prices and proximity, countries with higher income send more immigrants, of lower skill; (4) within a sending country, Australia attracts less total but higher-skill migrants than does the United States. This can be attributed, however, to the fact that the skill price in Australia is lower than the US skill price, so that immigration gains are greater from immigrating to United States; and (5) the estimated coefficients determining migration flows to Australia and the United States are the same for both countries. We conclude that geography thus matters in the sense that who a country's neighbors are, in terms of their level and type of development, has a significant effect on the size and skill composition of employment migrants. There is no evidence that the differences in the selection mechanism used to screen employment migrants in the two countries play a significant role in affecting the characteristics of skill migration.
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Authors: Jasso, Guillermina; Rosenzweig, Mark R.

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: North America; Oceania; Australia ... [+] Show more

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Employment; Statistics; Migration ... [+] Show more
Who becomes an entrepreneur?: labor market prospects and occupational choice

Why do some people become entrepreneurs (and others don't)? Why are firms so heterogeneous and many firms so small? ... Show more
Why do some people become entrepreneurs (and others don't)? Why are firms so heterogeneous and many firms so small? To start, the paper briefly documents evidence from the empirical literature that the relationship between entrepreneurship and education is U-shaped, that many entrepreneurs start a firm 'out of necessity', that most firms are small, remain so, yet persist in the market, and that returns to entrepreneurship have a much larger cross-sectional variance than returns to wage work. Popular models of firm heterogeneity cannot easily account for the U-shape or for the persistence of low-productivity firms. The paper shows that these facts can be explained in a model of occupational choice between wage work and entrepreneurship where agents are heterogeneous in their ability as workers, and starting entrepreneurs face uncertainty about their project's productivity. Then, if agents' expected productivity as entrepreneurs is increasing and not too concave in their ability as workers, the most and the least able individuals choose to become entrepreneurs. This sorting is due to heterogeneous outside options in the labor market. Because of their low opportunity cost, low-ability agents benefit disproportionately from the ability to pursue only good business projects and abandon low-productivity ones. This also makes them more likely to immediately abandon a project for a new one. Data from the NLSY79 [1979 US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth] gives support to these two predictions. Individuals with relatively high or low wages when employed, or with a high or low degree, are more likely to be entrepreneurs or to become entrepreneurs, and spend more time in entrepreneurship. Among entrepreneurs, more of the firms run by individuals with low wages when employed, or with a low degree, are abandoned after only a year.
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Authors: Poschke, Markus

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: North America; United States

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Performance; Research; Statistics ... [+] Show more
Education and mobility

We show that the length of compulsory education has a causal impact on regional labour mobility. The analysis is ba ... Show more
We show that the length of compulsory education has a causal impact on regional labour mobility. The analysis is based on a quasi-exogenous staged Norwegian school reform, and register data on the whole population. Based on the results, we conclude that part of the US-Europe difference, as well as the European North-South difference in labour mobility, is likely to be due to differences in levels of education in the respective regions.
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Authors: Machin, Stephen; Pelkonen, Panu; Salvanes, Kjell G.

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: North America; Europe; United States

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Labour market; Disadvantaged; Teaching and learning ... [+] Show more
Gone for good?: determinants of school dropout in Southern Italy

The aim of the present paper is to gain some insight into the causes of dropping out of school and, more generally, ... Show more
The aim of the present paper is to gain some insight into the causes of dropping out of school and, more generally, of the factors that induce parents to review their choices about their child’s schooling careers. To this end we apply to data from a school dropout survey insights from a model of sequential decision making by parents, where the initial decision can be reviewed in the light of new information emerging about the ability and opportunities of the child in benefitting from education relative to her outside (in the unskilled market). Analysis of the data confirms the role of both economic capacity (opportunity costs) and cultural capacity (ability to disentangle signals about future opportunities) of the family of origin shape observed choices about drop-out and return to school by individuals in our sample. Dropping out behaviour also appears to be strongly influenced by mismatches between school and student, however, and many of those who leave are not ‘gone for good’.
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Authors: O'Higgins, Niall; D'Amato, Marcello; Caroleo, Floro Ernesto; Barone, Adriana

Corporate authors: Institute for the Study of Labour (Germany) (IZA)

Date: 2008

Geographic subjects: Europe; Italy

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Youth; Research; Participation ... [+] Show more