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

Evaluating an innovative redundancy-retraining project: the Austrian Steel Foundation

This paper evaluates an Austrian manpower training program, which is highly innovative in its content and financing ... Show more
This paper evaluates an Austrian manpower training program, which is highly innovative in its content and financing - and could therefore serve as a role model for other programs. In the late 1980s privatisation and down-sizing of nationalised steel firms have led to large-scale redundancies. A special Steel Foundation was created as part of a social plan. This Foundation acted like an independent training centre, where displaced workers would spend relatively long training periods (sometimes several years), obtaining personality and orientation training, as well as formal education. The last step of the integrative program was placement assistance as well as assistance creating one’s own business. The Foundation was financed by (higher) contributions from unemployment insurance funds, by the previous firms themselves, as well as by a collectively-bargained special tax on the remaining workers in the Steel Firms. Moreover the trainees themselves would have to support the Foundation by depositing their redundancy payments.
In evaluating post-foundation economic performance I use days worked and wage growth. As a control group I take all other displaced workers from the firms who formed the Foundation, using Instrumental Variables to solve the selection problem. The results show considerable wage gains - even for a period of five years after leaving the Foundation - as well as improved employment prospects. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis is performed to assess the long-term success of the Foundation.
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Authors: Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf

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

Date: 2001

Geographic subjects: Europe; Austria

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Innovation; Industry; Income ... [+] Show more
Can vocational education improve the wages of minorities and disadvantaged groups?: the case of Israel

There is considerable empirical literature which compares wage levels of workers who have studied at secondary voca ... Show more
There is considerable empirical literature which compares wage levels of workers who have studied at secondary vocational schools with wages of workers who took academic schooling. In general, vocational education does not lead to higher wages. However, in some countries where labour markets are characterised by employment growth, skill shortages and a good match between vocational skills and available jobs, the record of vocational schooling has been more positive. Israel constitutes a case in point. However, little attention has been given to examining the success of vocational education in raising the wages of various sub-sections of the labour force, in particular of minorities and disadvantaged groups. In this paper, we examine the efficacy of vocational education in raising the wage levels of four such groups: recent immigrants, Jews of Eastern origin, Israeli Arabs and females. The results are mixed, differing from group to group, thus justifying our approach of examining the impact of vocational schooling on finer breakdowns of the population of secondary school completers.
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Authors: Neuman, Shoshana; Ziderman, Adrian

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

Date: 2001

Geographic subjects: Middle East; Israel

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Vocational education and training; Disadvantaged; Labour market ... [+] Show more
Human capital accumulation, education and earnings inequality

This paper attempts to add to the understanding of the causes for the differing recent developments in inequality i ... Show more
This paper attempts to add to the understanding of the causes for the differing recent developments in inequality in OECD countries. The similarity of shocks and technological changes affecting these countries suggests that interactions of these shocks and country specific institutions are responsible for the diverging inequality patterns. The paper suggests a channel complementary to those investigated in recent contributions, focusing on the impact of education. A microfoundation of human capital formation is proposed, emphasising heterogeneity of individuals and multidimensionality of human capital. The reactions in individual behaviour triggered by technological change are crucially affected by the education system and are shown to be responsible for the divergent developments in inequality.
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Authors: Sunde, Uwe

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

Date: 2001

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Income; Technology; Skills and knowledge ... [+] Show more
On the complementarity between education and training in Europe

This paper is an empirical investigation of the complementarity between education and training in 13 European count ... Show more
This paper is an empirical investigation of the complementarity between education and training in 13 European countries, based on the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). After confirming the standard result that training incidence is higher among individuals with more education, I find that the relationship between educational attainment and training incidence varies significantly across countries and birth cohorts. I show that individuals have a higher training incidence in countries with a more educated labour force, a less stratified schooling system, a higher union density and a lower value of the Kaitz index. I also find evidence that individuals with more education and limited labour market experience enjoy higher private returns from recent training than individuals with the same experience and less education. More experienced individuals with higher education, however, have lower returns from recent training than less educated workers with the same experience.
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Authors: Brunello, Giorgio

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

Date: 2001

Geographic subjects: Europe

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Youth; Outcomes; Income ... [+] Show more
A product market theory of worker training

We develop a product market theory that identifies determinants of worker turnover and explains why firms invest in ... Show more
We develop a product market theory that identifies determinants of worker turnover and explains why firms invest in general human capital, then make wage offers for each others trained employees and finally engage in imperfect product market competition. Equilibria with and without training, and multiple equilibria can emerge. If competition is sufficiently soft and trained workers are substitutes, there will be no turnover in equilibrium, and firms invest in non-specific training if others do the same, because they would otherwise suffer a competitive disadvantage or need to pay high wages in order to attract workers. Government intervention can be socially desirable to turn training into a focal equilibrium.
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Authors: Gersbach, Hans; Schmutzler, Armin

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

Date: 2001

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Income; Skills and knowledge; Governance ... [+] Show more
Between-group competition in the labor market and the rising returns to skill: US and France 1964-2000

This paper describes the changes in the composition of the labour force in the last 35 years and quantifies the sub ... Show more
This paper describes the changes in the composition of the labour force in the last 35 years and quantifies the substitution of low education/high experience workers by low experience/high education workers by using US [United States] and French microdata. The consequences of this substitution on the wage structure are then investigated. In the US, labour supply changes can explain the changes in returns to experience. It also accounts for a part of the increase in returns to education between 1980 and 2000, between eight per cent and 20 per cent depending on the specification. These results rely on panel estimates of a useful concept: the elasticity of substitution between experience and education, which is found to be less than half. In France, the covariations of prices and the supply of skills are consistent with a pure labour supply explanation. Methodologically, the paper shows that the use of a stock measure of efficient units of skill is better than flow measures (e.g. cohort size). It also allows to analyse the consequences of rising female labour participation.
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Authors: Wasmer, Etienne

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

Date: 2001

Geographic subjects: North America; Europe; United States ... [+] Show more

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Gender; Skills and knowledge; Finance ... [+] Show more
Immigration policy and the skills of immigrants to Australia, Canada, and the United States

Census data for 1990/91 indicate that Australian and Canadian immigrants have higher levels of English fluency, edu ... Show more
Census data for 1990/91 indicate that Australian and Canadian immigrants have higher levels of English fluency, education, and income (relative to natives) than do US immigrants. This skill deficit for US immigrants arises primarily because the US receives a much larger share of immigrants from Latin America than do the other two countries. After excluding Latin American immigrants, the observable skills of immigrants are similar in the three countries. These patterns suggest that the comparatively low overall skill level of US immigrants may have more to do with geographic and historical ties to Mexico than with the fact that skill-based admissions are less important in the US than in Australia and Canada.
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Authors: Antecol, Heather; Cobb-Clark, Deborah A.; Trejo, Stephen J.

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

Date: 2001

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

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Language; Income; Skills and knowledge ... [+] Show more
The job search and education investments of immigrant families

This paper examines the post-migration investments in schooling and job search of immigrant families using new long ... Show more
This paper examines the post-migration investments in schooling and job search of immigrant families using new longitudinal data for Australia. Higher education levels at time of arrival are associated with a greater probability of enrolling in school after migration. In households where the visa category would suggest that post-migration investments may be important, we find higher rates of school enrolment and job search. Traditional gender roles appear to dictate which partner makes the investments in formal schooling. However, comparative labour market advantage, captured by principal applicant status appears to dictate which partner makes greater investments in job search.
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Authors: Cobb-Clark, Deborah A.; Connolly, Marie D.; Worswick, Christopher

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

Date: 2001

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Gender; Participation; Research ... [+] Show more
Overeducation and skill endowments: the role of school achievement and vocational training quality

Thurow’s job-competition model implies that overeducation is contingent upon the differing skill endowments of empl ... Show more
Thurow’s job-competition model implies that overeducation is contingent upon the differing skill endowments of employees. As yet, only rudimentary evidence has been furnished to confirm this relationship. In the present paper, we test the theory in a more sophisticated manner, by means of a more differentiated survey of the skill endowments of workers. Our analyses are based on the German Life History Study (GLHS), in which longitudinal biographical data was gathered for the West German cohorts born in 1964 and 1971 up until the year of the survey (1998). These data are analysed using a trivariate probit model which takes into account the selective acquisition of school qualifications, and the selective choice of vocational training with varying levels of quality.
Our findings confirm that type and grade of school leaving certificate both have a strong effect on the later risk of overeducation. The quality of vocational training chosen only impacts on the overeducation risk when the strong selectivity effects in certain types of schools and types of vocational training are not taken into account. In line with existing literature, we find that the risk of overeducation decreases with increasing traditional skill measures such as experience, tenure, on-the-job-training, and further education. In sum, our results clearly confirm the capacity of the job-competition model to explain the persistence of overeducation in the labour market.
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Authors: Buchel, Felix; Pollmann-Schult, Matthias

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

Date: 2001

Geographic subjects: Europe; Germany

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Vocational education and training; Assessment; Qualifications ... [+] Show more
Intergenerational transmissions and the school-to-work transition of 2nd generation immigrants

We analyse the extent of intergenerational transmission through parental capital, ethnic capital and neighbourhood ... Show more
We analyse the extent of intergenerational transmission through parental capital, ethnic capital and neighbourhood effects on several aspects of the school-to-work transition of second generation immigrants and young ethnic Danes. The main findings are that parental capital has strong positive effects on the probability of completing a qualifying education and on the entry into the labour market, but it has a much smaller impact on the duration of the first employment spell and on the wage level. Growing up in neighbourhoods with a high concentration of immigrants is associated with negative labour market prospects both for young natives and second generation immigrants.
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Authors: Nielsen, Helena Skyt; Rosholm, Michael; Smith, Nina; Husted, Leif

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

Date: 2001

Geographic subjects: Europe; Denmark

Resource type: Report, paper or authored book

Series name: IZA discussion paper

Subjects: Youth; Demographics; Employment ... [+] Show more