The authors compare a firm's costs and benefits of providing apprenticeship training in Austria and Switzerland, using two original micro data sets. While both countries share a number of similarities, including an extensive vocational education and training (VET) system, and a common border,...

Apprenticeship systems are essentially based on the voluntary participation of firms that provide (and usually also finance) training positions, often incurring considerable net training costs. One potential, yet under-researched explanation for this behavior is that firms act in accordance with...

This study analyzes the relationship between firms’ costs of hiring skilled workers and their provision of internal apprenticeship training. Our empirical analysis draws on four waves of firm surveys conducted in Germany and Switzerland that include detailed information on firms’ hiring...

Workers will not pay for general on-the-job training if contracts are not enforceable. Firms may if there are mobility frictions. Private information about worker productivities, however, prevents workers who quit receiving their marginal products elsewhere. Their new employers then receive...

We develop novel measures of early-career skills that are more detailed, comprehensive, and labor-market-relevant than existing skill proxies. We exploit that skill requirements of apprenticeships in Germany are codified in state-approved, nationally standardized apprenticeship plans. These...

This paper analyzes the causal impact of dual vocational education and training (VET) on the labor market insertion of youth. Using matched education and social security records, we estimate the causal impact of a major reform that introduced a new dual track, which combines firm- and...

Some countries, notably those which have long had a weak history of vocational education like the UK and the US, have recently seen a rapid expansion of hybrid schools which provide both general and vocational education. England introduced "University Technical Colleges" (UTCs) in 2010 for...

Vocational education is formal education about work, and vocational programs of study typically target a narrow subset of middle-income occupations. In this chapter, we trace vocational education from competing 20th century education philosophies to its varied structures throughout the 21st...

This paper assesses the effectiveness of a social public procurement policy in Switzerland that gives firms that train apprentices' a preferential treatment. We estimate the effectiveness of this social procurement policy on a firm's training participation, training intensity, and training...