Previous studies find that participation in educational measures does not increase sick-listed em-ployees’ chance of returning to work. This is surprising because education is supposed to increase human capital and raise productivity. However, a higher productivity may make the participants...

In this paper we examine whether the prospect of compulsory programme participation motivates individuals to leave the unemployment insurance (UI) system prior to participation. We analyze data from the Danish labour market. Here a series of reforms have enforced program participation and...

This study measures the effect of case management interview (CMI) on 1,000 long-term sick-listed employees’ probability of returning to work. In contrast to previous studies, we use instrumental variables to correct for selection effects in CMI. Using a competing hazard rate model, we find...

The Danish policy towards work-disabled persons comprise contradictory forces. The state seeks to enhance labour market integration of work-disabled persons through vocational rehabilitation. However lax job protection legislation makes it easy for employers to dismiss sick-listed employees. We...

The theory of Relative Risk Aversion (RRA) claims that educational decision-making is ultimately motivated by the individual’s desire to avoid downward social class mobility, and that this desire is stronger than the desire to pursue upward mobility. This paper implements a dynamic programming...

Using Danish register and survey data, we examine the effect of a national graded return-to-work program on the probability of sick-listed workers returning to regular working hours. During program participation, the worker receives the normal hourly wage for the hours worked and sickness...

Sample selection and endogeneity are frequent causes of biases in non-experimental empirical studies. In binary models a standard solution involves complex multivariate models. A simple approximation has been shown to work well in bivariate models. This paper extends the approximation to a...

The sociological research literature on intergenerational educational attainment has highlighted three types of theoretical frameworks in explaining to what extent social origins influences people’s educational choices and possibilities. The three explanatory frameworks are 1) the...

In this paper we compare the traditional econometric fixed effect/first difference estimator with the maximum likelihood estimator implied by covariance structure models for panel data. Our findings are that the maximum likelihood estimator is remarkable robust to mis-specifications, however in...

Most studies which use Mare’s (1980, 1981) seminal model of educational transitions find that the effect of family background variables decreases across educational transitions. Cameron and Heckman (1998, 2001) have argued that this “waning coefficients” phenomenon might be driven by...