This paper investigates how precisely short-term, job-search oriented training programs as opposed to long-term, human capital intensive training programs work. We evaluate and compare their effects on time until job entry, stability of employment, and earnings. Further, we examine the...

We demonstrate that heat inhibits learning and that school air-conditioning mitigates this effect. Student fixed effects models using 10 million PSAT-retakers show hotter school days in years before the test reduce scores, with extreme heat being particularly damaging. Weekend and summer heat...

It is a widely held opinion that apprenticeship training represents a net investment for training firms, and that therefore firms only train if they have the possibility to recoup these investments after the training period. A recent study using a new firm-level dataset for Switzerland showed,...

This paper extends the standard human capital model with real options. Real options influence investment behavior when risky investments in human capital are irreversible and individuals can affect the timing of the investment. Option values make individuals more reluctant to invest in human...

With endogenous skills and given technology, labor market integration necessarily lowers welfare of the left-behind in a poor sending country, even if all agents face identical emigration probabilities. This is in sharp contrast to the case of exogenous skill supply.

Assuming a two-period model with endogenous choices of labour, education, and saving, it is shown to be second-best efficient not to distort the choice of education. In general this implies distorting the saving decision. Hence a strict order of policy priority is derived. Efficient tax policy...

Should a redistributive government optimally subsidize education to provoke a reduction in the skill premium through general equilibrium effects on wages? To answer this question, this paper studies optimal linear and non-linear redistributive income taxes and education subsidies in two-type...

We develop a model of education where individuals face educational risk. Successfully entering the skilled labor sector depends on individual effort in education and public resources, but educational risk still causes (income) inequality. We show that an optimal public policy consists of...

Demographic trends in most developed economies are characterized by rising longevity and decreasing birthrates. These trends endanger the sustainability of the current public pension systems. Therefore social security reform proposals are on the agenda in many countries. This paper demonstrates...

This paper studies the implications of introducing child care in the human capital production function when assessing the effects of labor income taxation on growth. We develop an OLG model where formal schooling and child care enter the human capital production function as complements and we...