A productive workforce is a key objective of public economic policy. Recent empirical work suggests that increasing individual participation in sports and exercise can be a major force for achieving this goal. The productivity gains and related increase in earnings come on top of the already...

Incentives to invest in higher education are affected by both the direct wage effect of human capital investments and the indirect wage effect resulting from lower unemployment risks and shorter spells in unemployment associated with higher educated. We analyse the returns to education in...

We analyze the effect of education on wages using German Socio-Economic Panel data and regional variation in mandatory years of schooling and the supply of schools. This allows us to estimate more than one local average treatment effect and heterogeneous effects for different groups of...

Looking at smoking-behavior it can be shown that there are differences concerning the time-preference-rate. Therefore this has an effect on the optimal schooling decision in the way that we assume a lower average human capital level for smokers. According to a higher time-preference-rate we...

In this paper we make a systematic presentation of returns to education in Austria for the period 1981-1997. We use consistent cross-sections from the Mikrozensus and find falling returns over time. These falling returns are not caused by changes in the sample design and reduced willingness to...

We address the impact of education upon wage inequality by drawing on evidence from fifteen European countries, during a period ranging between 1980 and 1995. We focus on within-educational-levels wage inequality by estimating quantile regressions of Mincer equations and analysing the...

The General Educational Development (GED) credential is issued on the basis of an eight hour subject-based test. The test claims to establish equivalence between dropouts and traditional high school graduates, opening the door to college and positions in the labor market. In 2008 alone, almost...

Greece experienced a devastating civil war in 1946-1949. This led to many deaths, economic losses, and severe reductions in schooling expenditures and attendance. Using an instrumental variables approach, we estimate the 1977 returns to schooling, showing that for those affected by the civil...

We estimate the effect of the 1999 education reform in Poland on employment and earnings. The 1999 education reform in Poland replaced the previous 8 years of general and 3/4/5 years of tracked secondary education with 9 years of general and 3/3/4 years of tracked upper-secondary education. The...

The Swedish adult education program called Knowledge Lift is unprecedented in its size and scope, aiming to raise the skill level of all low-skilled workers towards the medium level. This paper evaluates the effects of program participation on individual labor market outcomes, notably employment...