This paper for the first time jointly analyses the consequences of adverse selection, signalling and indices on entry wages of skilled employees. It uses German linked employer employee panel data (LIAB) and introduces a measure for relative productivity of skilled job applicants based on...

An emerging economic literature over the past decade has made use of international tests of educational achievement to analyze the determinants and impacts of cognitive skills. The cross-country comparative approach provides a number of unique advantages over national studies: It can exploit...

Decisions to invest in human capital depend on people's time preferences. We show that differences in patience are closely related to substantial subnational differences in educational achievement, leading to new perspectives on longstanding within-country disparities. We use social-media data -...

Small average wage effects of employer and/or occupation changes after apprenticeship training mask large differences between occupation groups and apprentices with different schooling back-grounds. Apprentices in commerce and trading occupations strongly profit from an employer change. Employer...

This paper demonstrates that the share of apprentices exhibits a relatively strong seasonal pattern. This means that statistics on the share of apprentices such as those presented in official publications differ substantially from the actual yearly mean if they are measured on a date close to...

This paper analyses the impact of replacing unskilled or semi-skilled employees by apprentices on establishment performance. We use representative matched employer–employee panel data and correct for different sources of estimation biases. We show that an increase of the proportion of...

Relatively small average wage effects of employer and occupation changes after apprenticeship training mask large differences between occupation groups and apprentices with different schooling backgrounds. Employer and occupation changers in industrial occupations enjoy large wage advantages,...

A series of seminal theoretical papers argues that poaching of employees may hamper company-sponsored general training. However, the extent of poaching, its determinants and consequences, remains an open empirical question. We provide a novel empirical identification strategy for poaching and...

Lifelong learning is often promoted in ageing societies, but little is known about its returns or governmentsÕ ability to advance it. This paper evaluates the effects of a large-scale randomized field experiment issuing vouchers for adult education in Switzerland. We find no significant average...