Education is a crucial determinant of labour market success. We investigate whether education is an appropriate means to cushion the negative consequences of job loss and study the role of age as a second major labour market factor. Using German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data for the years...

This paper calculates new measures of human capital. Contrary to the existing literature, they are based on realistic rates of return to education, which are allowed to vary substantially across countries and to some extent over time. The new measures perform well in regression analysis...