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In this paper we estimate the short-term effects of a French retraining program that was intended to improve reemployment prospects of displaced workers. Our empirical analysis uses non-experimental data collected by the French Ministry of Labour. Transitions from unemployment to permanent vs. temporary jobs are assumed to be generated by a dependent competing risks duration model. Moreover we assume that program entry but also direct transitions from the program to employment are both affected by a selectivity process depending on observable and unobservable individual heterogeneity. We find mixed evidence regarding relevance of the program. For displaced workers who join the program, program participation increases the average probability to obtain a permanent job by 8 points (passing from 42 to 50%). However, for displaced workers who do not join the program, this average probability would have been increased by 28 points (passing from 43 to 71%) had they participated in the program. We conclude that, although the program has been globally effective, it has been insufficiently proposed to the displaced workers who would have benefited the most from it.

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This paper examines the parallel trends in education and labour market developments in Australia and Britain. It uses unique information in the WERS [Workplace Employment Relations Survey] and HILDA [Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia] surveys on reported overskilling in the workplace. To a degree, the overskilling information overcomes the problem of unobserved ability differences and focuses on the actual job-employee mismatch more than the conventional overeducation variables can. The paper finds that the prevalence of overskilling decreases with education at least for Australia, but the wage penalty associated with overskilling increases with education. Although the general patterns of overskilling (prevalence and penalties) are fairly similar between Australia and Britain, the problem appears to be greater in Britain.

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In this paper we estimate the rate of return to firm investments in human capital in the form of formal job training. We use a panel of large firms with unusually detailed information on the duration of training, the direct costs of training, and several firm characteristics such as their output, workforce characteristics and capital stock. Our estimates of the return to training vary substantially across firms. On average it is 7% for firms not providing training and 24% for those providing training. Formal job training is a good investment for many firms and the economy, possibly yielding higher returns than either investments in physical capital or investments in schooling. In spite of this, observed amounts of formal training are very small.

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This paper investigates the earnings effects of training in the Portuguese labour market. We use the Portuguese Labour Force Survey to classify training according to multiple criteria, including providing institution, purpose, duration, and content of the training activity. First, we establish some stylised facts about the extent and determinants of different types of training. We find that there are major differences in training participation across groups, with elder, low educated workers participating substantially less. Second, we measure the wage effects of training. We find that in Portugal returns to training are large and significant. The estimated coefficients are about 12% in the case of men and 37% in the case of women. We show that discriminating between gender, education level, experience, the public and the private sector, and industrial activity reveals important differences across categories of workers. Workers with low qualifications and long professional experience earn larger returns. On average, women receive larger returns than men, though they are subject to greater variation across education and experience groups. The average effect of training is similar in the private sector and in the public sector. Experience in the private sector and education in the public sector are key determinants of the returns to training. Further, training to improve current skills and training in a firm attract largest returns. Third, the paper investigates whether and to what extent training participation affects the probability of entering and leaving unemployment. We find that being trained does not affect significantly the transition probabilities.

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A great deal of attention has been paid in the literature to estimating the impacts of training programs. Much less attention has been devoted to how training agencies assign participants to training programs, and to how these allocation decisions vary with agency resources, the initial skill levels of participants and the prevailing labor market conditions. This paper models the training assignment problem faced by welfare agencies, deriving empirical implications regarding aggregate training policies and testing these implications using data from Welfare-to-Work training programs run by California counties during the 1990s. I find that county welfare agencies do not seem to follow a simple returns-maximization model in their training assignment decisions. The results show that, as suggested by political economy models, the local political environment has a strong effect on training policies. In particular, I find that going from a Republican to a Democratic majority in a county's Board of Supervisors has a strong effect on training policies, significantly increasing the proportion of welfare recipients receiving human capital development training.

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This study evaluates and compares the effectiveness of two alternative training schemes for the unemployed: short, job-search oriented training and long, human capital oriented training. We investigate the impact dynamics of these programs considering both unemployment and employment duration. Our analysis uses a rich administrative longitudinal data set for Germany where both programs were implemented at the same time. Our estimation strategy flexibly accounts for dynamic selection on observables and unobservables as well as heterogeneous treatment effects. The results indicate that short-term training schemes can be an effective tool to reduce unemployment in the long run, in particular if participation occurs early during unemployment. Long-term training schemes increase the average duration of employment spells more strongly than short-term training. However, they increase the expected unemployment duration if they are started early during unemployment. This negative short-run impact of long-term training is an important driver of its overall effectiveness.

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This paper presents the results of a randomized experiment analyzing the use of vouchers for adult training. In 2006, 2,400 people were issued with a training voucher which they were entitled to use in payment for a training course of their choice. User behavior was compared with a control group of 14,000 people. People in the treatment and in the control group were not aware at any time that they were part of an experiment. The experiment shows that the voucher had a significant causal impact on participation in training modules. Nevertheless, the increase was partially offset by a deadweight loss in excess of fifty per cent.

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This paper investigates whether the interaction between family background and school tracking affects human capital accumulation. Our a priori view is that more tracking should reinforce the role of parental privilege, and thereby reduce equality of opportunity. Compared to the current literature, which focuses on early outcomes, such as test scores at 13 and 15, we look at later outcomes, including literacy, dropout rates, college enrolment, employability and earnings. While we do not confirm previous results that tracking reinforces family background effects on literacy, we do confirm our view when looking at educational attainment and labour market outcomes. When looking at early wages, we find that parental background effects are stronger when tracking starts earlier. We reconcile the apparently contrasting results on literacy, educational attainment and earnings by arguing that the signalling role of formal education - captured by attainment - matters more than actual skills - measured by literacy - in the early stages of labour market experience.

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This paper shows that increasing product market competition can have a direct impact on the employment relationship and on wage inequality. I develop a simple model in which an increase in product market competition increases returns to skill through the effect of competition on the sensitivity of profits to cost reductions. I then show empirically that relative wages increase with competition using a large panel of United Kingdom workers with complete work histories. I identify the impact of competition on returns to skill in the panel, using two exogenous measures of competition provided by two quasi-natural experiments. Quantile regressions indicate that increased competition also raised returns to unobserved ability.

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We use important new training information from waves 8-10 of the British Household Panel Survey to document the various forms of work-related training received by men and women over the period 1998-2000, and to estimate their impact on wages. We initially present descriptive information about training: we find that most work-related training is viewed by its recipients as general, that the longest training courses are for induction purposes, that the vast majority of training takes place either at the workplace or at the employer's training centre, and that most training is paid for by employers. We then estimate the impact of training - controlling for its financing method - on wage levels and wage growth. We find that employer-financed training increases wages both in the current and future firms, with some evidence that the impact in future firms is larger, especially for accredited training. These results are inconsistent with orthodox human capital theory with no credit constraints, but consistent with the relatively recent training literature on training in imperfectly competitive labour markets. They are also consistent with the hypothesis that firms offer credit-constrained workers binding training contracts whereby firms pay for general training and workers repay the 'loan' by receiving a post-training wage below their marginal product.

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