The aim of this paper is to measure the returns to human capital. We use a unique data set consisting of matched employer-employee information. Data on individuals’ human capital include a set of 26 tasks that capture the utilization of workers’ skills in a very detailed way. Thus, we can...

This doctoral thesis analyses the impact of education and other determinants on labour market outcomes using microeconometric methods. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction. Chapter 2 uses a randomised field experiment among German human resource managers to evaluate which skill signals such as...

Little is known about the payoffs to apprenticeship training in the German speaking countries for the participants. OLS estimates suggest that the returns are similar to those of other types of schooling. However, there is a lot of heterogeneity in the types of apprenticeships offered, and...

This paper interprets accidents occurring on the way to and from work as negative health shocks to identify the causal effect of health on labor market outcomes. We argue that in our sample of exactly matched treated and control workers, these health shocks are quasi-randomly assigned. A...

We compare the wages of skilled workers in multinational enterprises (MNEs) versus domestic firms, the earnings of domestic firm workers with past, future and no MNE experience, and estimate how the presence of ex-MNE peers affects the wages of domestic firm employees. The analysis relies on...

We examine the gender wage gap in Austria from 2005 to 2017 using data from EU-SILC. The raw wage gap declined from 18.6 log points in 2005 to 14.9 log points in 2017. We use standard decomposition techniques that correct for differences in the distributions of human capital, and other...

This paper compares two estimation methods of occupational skills transferability, both theoretically and empirically. The first method is based on Shaw’s (1984) study, and the second one is based on Ormiston’s (2014) study. The main difference between these two methods is that Shaw’s...

We analyze the effect of income on mortality in Austria using administrative social security data. To tackle potential endogeneity concerns arising in this context, we estimate time-invariant firm-specific wage components and use them as instruments for actual wages. While we do find...

German social security records involve an indicator for part-time or full-time work. In 2011, the reporting procedure was changed suggesting that a fraction of worker recorded to be working full-time before the change were in fact part-time workers. This study develops a correction based on...

This volume was prepared by Jens Ruhose while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes four self-contained chapters that contribute to the understanding of the...