Regionale Bildungsrenditen – von der Methode zur Rendite

The paper shows an empirical analysis of regional returns to education in Germany. Therefore the returns to education are estimated for Germany as a whole and for the eastern and western part seperately. Additionally the analysis examines the returns for each federal state. For the estimations it is necessary to identify an efficient method and the best estimable model. It can be shown that the Three-Stage-Least-Squaresmethod yields the best results. For Germany the regression shows an average return for an additional year of education of about 10 percent. By comparing the eastern and western part, it can be shown that in the east german states – the New Länder – employees get a much higher return. A further separation of states verifies the heterogeneities of the regions.