In this paper we use a newly constructed dataset following 30,000 Italian individuals from high school to labor market and we analyze whether the gender composition of peers in high school affected their choice of college major, their academic performance and their labor market income. We...

We use the European Community Household Panel, a harmonized data set covering the countries of the European Union, to provide detailed estimates of the returns to education. Our results can be summarized as follows. Firstly, average returns to education have been mostly stable during the second...

Family background can influence offspring earnings in two ways: conditioning their educational attainments (indirect effect) and circumscribing their opportunities in the labour market, independently from their educational attainment (direct effect). In this paper, following a multi-steps...

Using EU-SILC data for 2005 and 2011, we compare the role of family background on labour outcomes in three EU countries that experienced large swings in unemployment during this period. We use a multidimensional family background indicator that avoids undesirable cohort effects. Our results...

For most students the aspiration to gain employment in a graduate job is the main motivation for going to university. Whether they fulfil this aspiration depends considerably on national graduate labour markets. We analyse the comparative evolution of these markets across Europe over the decade...

Occupational mismatch is a wide-spread phenomenon among immigrants in many European countries. Mismatch, predominantly measured in terms of education, is often regarded as a waste of human capital. Such discussions, however, ignore the imperfect comparability of international educational degrees...

Using the Canadian General Social Survey we compute returns to post-secondary education relative to high-school. Unlike previous research using Canadian data, our dataset allows us to control for ability selection into higher education. We find strong evidence of positive ability selection into...

This discussion paper describes the extent of social inequalities both within and between the countries of the European Union. In the first three chapters we address the micro level of individual life courses: education, employment and income. The following chapters analyse the societal...

Countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia are in their third decade of independence. What impact does this have on the skills premium and does accession to the European Union have an impact on the returns to education? The returns to education in 28 transition and 20 non-transition...

While the literature on the incidence and wage effects of over-education is substantial, specific results for doctoral graduates are surprisingly scarce. This article aims to fill this gap, not only by measuring the prevalence of over-educated PhD holders in Europe (i.e. in EU Member States and...