In international comparison, German university graduates are elder on average when they enter the labor market. Apart from the longer duration time of study at university, one fundamental reason is the long secondary schooling time. Therefore, almost all of the German federal states have...

Despite the interdependence between cognitive and noncognitive skills, empirical studies have shown a longer period of acquisition in life-time for the latter besides relevance for educational and labor market success. Analyzing returns of investments during different periods of life is...

A simple model of decentralised graduation standards is presented. It is shown that a school whose students are disadvantaged on the labour market applies less demanding standards because such students have less incentives to graduate. The model's predictions are tested using Dutch school-level...