31 research outputs found
Continuous Training and Wages – An Empirical Analysis Using a Comparison-group Approach
Using German linked employer-employee data, this paper investigates the impact of on-the-job training on wages. The applied estimation technique was fi rst introduced by Leuven and Oosterbeek (2008). The idea is to compare wages of employees who intended to participate in training but did not do so because of a random event with wages of training participants. The estimated wage returns are statistically insignifi - cant. Furthermore, the decision to participate in training is associated with sizeable selection eff ects. On average, participants have a wage advantage of more than 4% compared to non-participants.Continuous training; wage returns; selection effect
The Effect of Subsidizing Continuous Training Investments - Evidence from German Establishment Data
This paper evaluates the impact of a training voucher program on establishments' investments in further training. The voucher program that was implemented in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia increased training incentives for employees in small and medium-sized establishments by reducing training costs by 50%. The estimation is based on a quasi-experimental research design exploiting variation across time, regions and establishment size. Using establishment data, I find that the share of establishments that invest in training increased by approximately 5 percentage points. Training intensity and the educational structure of participants remained unaffected among those establishments investing in training.Continuous training, employers, training voucher, subsidies, difference-in-difference
Continuous Training, Job Satisfaction and Gender – An Empirical Analysis Using German Panel Data
Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), this paper analyzes the relationship between training and job satisfaction focusing in particular on gender diff erences. Controlling for a variety of socio-demographic, job and fi rm characteristics, we fi nd a diff erence between males and females in the correlation of training with job satisfaction which is positive for males but insignifi cant for females. This diff erence becomes even more pronounced when applying individual fi xed eff ects. To gain insights into the reasons for this diff erence, we further investigate training characteristics by gender. We fi nd that fi nancial support and career-orientation of courses only seems to matter for the job satisfaction of men but not of women.Training; job satisfaction; gender differences; fixed effects
Does Product Market Competition Decrease Employers’ Training Investments? – Evidence from German Establishment Panel Data
Using a large panel data set of German manufacturing establishments, this paper investigates the impact of competition on training incidence as well as on the number of trained workers. According to theory, one would expect a negative relationship between product market competition and firms’ incentives to invest in employees’ general skills (Gersbach and Schmutzler 2006). In our empirical analysis, product market competition is approximated by various measures of competition such as the Herfindahl Index, the number of firms at the 3-digit industry level and the price cost margin. After controlling for unobserved heterogeneity across industries and establishments, there is no significant effect of competition on training. This result is robust towards different samples, model specifications and estimation techniques.Training, human capital, product market competition
Revisiting the Complementarity between Education and Training: The Role of Personality, Working Tasks and Firm Effects
This paper addresses the question to which extent the complementarity between education and training can be attributed to differences in observable characteristics, i.e. to individual, job and firm specific characteristics. The novelty of this paper is to analyze previously unconsidered characteristics, in particular, personality traits and tasks performed at work which are taken into account in addition to the standard individual specific determinants. Results show that tasks performed at work are strong predictors of training participation while personality traits are not. Once working tasks and other job related characteristics are controlled for, the skill gap in training participation drops considerably for off-the-job training and vanishes for on-the-job training.training, personality traits, working tasks, Oaxaca decomposition
Parenthood and risk preferences
This study analyzes how risk attitudes change when individuals become parents
using longitudinal data for a large and representative sample of individuals.
The results show that men and women experience a considerable increase in risk
aversion which already starts as early as two years before becoming a parent,
is largest shortly after giving birth and disappears when the child becomes
older. These findings show that parenthood leads to considerable changes in
individual risk attitudes over time. Thus, analyses using risk preferences as
the explanatory variable for economic outcomes should be careful in
interpreting the findings as causal effects
The effects of a high school curriculum reform on university enrollment and the choice of college major
This paper evaluates the effects of a high school curriculum reform on
students’ probability to enroll at university and to choose Science,
Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) as college major. The reform
that was introduced in one German state increased the degree of difficulty to
graduate from high school by increasing the mandatory instruction time in the
core subjects German, a foreign language, mathematics and natural sciences and
by raising the graduation requirements. Based on administrative data covering
all students, the empirical analysis is carried out by applying a difference-
in-differences model. The results show that the reform increased university
enrollment rates for both gender. With regard to choosing STEM as college
major, we only find a robust positive effect for males
Evidence from a randomized field experiment
To increase employee participation in training activities, the German
government introduced a large-scale training voucher program in 2008 that
reduces training fees by half. Based on a randomized field experiment, this
paper analyzes whether providing information about the existence and the
conditions of the training voucher had an effect on actual training activities
of employees. Because the voucher was newly introduced, only one-fourth of the
eligible employees knew the voucher exists at the time of the experiment. The
information intervention informed a random sample of eligible employees by
telephone about the program details and conditions. The results indicate that
the information significantly increased treated individuals’ knowledge of the
program but had no effect on voucher take-up or participation in training
activities. Additional descriptive analyses suggest that the reasons for these
zero effects are that the demand for self-financed training is low and that
liquidity constraints do not discourage many employees from training
participation
The effects of increasing the standards of the high school curriculum on school dropout
This paper evaluates the effects of a high school curriculum reform that was
introduced in one German state on high school dropout. The reform increased
the standards of the curriculum by reducing the freedom of choice in course
selection (amongst other things) resulting in an increase in the level and the
weekly teaching hours in the subjects German, a foreign language, mathematics
and natural sciences. Using a quasi-experimental evaluation design exploiting
variation across time and states, we identify the reform effect on students’
probability to graduate from high school. The results show that high school
dropout rates have increased for males and females alike. However, the effect
for males vanishes two years after reform implementation, while it remains
persistent for females even after three years
Does Regional Training Supply Determine Employees’ Training Participation?
Using data from the National Educational Panel Study of 2009/2010, this paper
investigates the relationship between regional training supply and employees’
training participation. Controlling for other regional factors such as the
local unemployment rate, the educational level, the population density and the
regional industry composition, the results indicate that training
participation is significantly higher in regions with many firms in the
training supply market. The predictive power of the other regional factors is
rather minor