The paper integrates human-capital investments of heterogeneous individuals into a neoclassical growth framework. The accumulation of physical capital changes relative factor prices and thus incentives to acquire skills, thereby altering the composition of the labor force. This interplay between...

According to empirical studies, the relation between the relative wage of skilled workers and their relative supply is U-shaped. This finding is explained by the effect of technological change on the incentives for humancapital investments made by heterogeneous individuals.

Education is considered an important means of alleviating poverty and of improving an individual's job and earnings prospects. Nevertheless, in Haiti and the Dominican Republic school enrollment is far from complete and shows notable regional variation. This paper analyzes determinants of...

We evaluate the effect of the Apprenticeship Bonus, an employment subsidy programme, on early dropout of apprenticeship. Eligibility to the programme is restricted to school leavers who have actively searched for apprenticeship training to start immediately after leaving school, but were...

In this paper, I document evidence that intergovernmental incentives inherent in public sector defined benefit pension systems distort the amount and timing of income for public school teachers. This intergovernmental incentive stems from the fact that, in many states, local school districts are...

We study the impact of graduating in a recession in Flanders (Belgium), i.e. in a rigid labor market. In the presence of a high minimum wage, a typical recession hardly influences the hourly wage of low educated men, but reduces working time and earnings by about 4.5% up to twelve years after...

Taking into account the economic consequences of obesity highlighted in literature (Cawley, 2004), this study investigates the association between overweight and skill attainment at the university of Salerno in Italy, with particular focus on gender differences. Our findings indicate a...

The purpose of our study is to identify the linkage between national culture and the entrepreneurial intent for a specific demographic group. Thus, we set out to identify the differences induced by cultural context on the entrepreneurial intent of business administration bachelor students, from...

Outside of apprenticeships, allocations of public funds across vocational education and training (VET) courses are often made on the basis of government forecasts, with limited competition between (mostly public) colleges. This centralised model is often blamed for stifling responsiveness to...

We study whether early tracking of students based on ability increases migrant-native achievement gaps. To eliminate confounding impacts of unobserved country traits, we employ a differences-in-differences strategy that exploits international variation in the age of tracking as well as student...