Los efectos del desajuste educativo sobre el bienestar subjetivo

This paper analyzes the effects of educational mismatch on subjective wellbeing. We study whether a discrepancy exists between the aspirations associated with the level of education acquired by the individuals and the opportunities found in the labor market and, consequently, whether educational mismatch affects their overall levels of subjective wellbeing. Consistent with education generating certain aspirations, we find that educational mismatch has a sizable significant negative impact on life satisfaction for over-educated individuals while the effect is positive for under-educated individuals. We also study whether individuals showing educational mismatch are less satisfied than other workers being adequately educated, within a similar job, since this dissatisfaction could translate into lower performance and productivity. In this case we only find under-education to negatively affect life satisfaction levels

Los indicadores de gestión en el Sector Público

El uso de indicadores de gestión en el ámbito público se ha extendido en las últimas décadas con el objetivo de valorar la actuación de las agencias públicas y contribuir a mejorar su funcionamiento y la eficiencia con que éstas operan. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las características que debe reunir un sistema de indicadores y los principales problemas que pueden derivarse de su utilización en el ámbito público. Para ello se destacan algunas particularidades del sector público que plantean problemas específicos a la hora de diseñar e implementar un sistema de indicadores. A continuación se discuten los objetivos que se persiguen con la introducción de un esquema de indicadores en el ámbito público, los tipos de indicadores que se emplean habitualmente y las dificultades que se derivan de su utilización en relación tanto a la información que proporcionan como a los incentivos que generan, tomando como referencia la experiencia de algunos países que han sido pioneros en la introducción de indicadores de gestión para valorar la actuación pública. In the last decades, performance indicators have often been used with the aim to assess the activities of public units and help to improve their efficiency. The objective of this paper is to analyze the characteristics that a system of public indicators should have and the main problems that may be derived from its use in the public sector. In order to do so, some peculiarities of the public sector, which are the source of specific problems when designing and implementing a system of performance indicators are described. Then, the different types of indicators and the difficulties that arise from their use in relation both with the information needed and with the incentives they give rise to are discussed.Indicadores de gestión, medición de la actuación en el sector público, Performance indicators, assessment of the performace in the public sector.

Assessing the level of happiness across countries: a robust frontier approach

In this paper we propose an innovative approach based on life satisfaction to estimate efficiency measures for individuals considering how they convert their resources into higher levels of happiness. We use an extension of the conditional nonparametric robust approach which allows us to consider a mixed set of individual and institutional variables that can affect the levels of life satisfaction. Our empirical analysis includes data about 31,854 individuals from 26 OECD countries participating in the last wave of the World Values Survey. Results obtained indicate that the most efficient individuals in achieving happiness tend to live in northern and central European countries whereas the less efficient individuals are found, in average, in Asian transitional economies. In addition, it is also found that most of the traditional determinants of wellbeing (e.g. age, marital status, religion or unemployment) also have a significant impact on efficiency measures

Effects of educational mismatch on private returns to education: An analysis of the Spanish case (1995-2006)

This study examines the effects of educational mismatch on wages in the Spanish labour market since the mid-nineties. First we study the evolution of returns to education and then we estimate returns to education in terms of the match between the worker’s schooling and the job requirements. The results indicate that returns to education have declined since the mid-nineties. One also finds that the return associated with the job’s required education is greater than that corresponding to the worker’s actual schooling, and that the return on an additional year of attained education is positive b ut less than that of an additional year of required education. From a policy perspective, the existence of educational mismatch points to inefficiencies in the allocation of the educational resources. Investment on education can positively contribute to alleviate the unemployment problem in Spain, but taken into account the existence of educational mismatch it also becomes necessary to introduce structural reforms in order to adapt the job structure to a model of production based on knowledge so that the more highly qualified workers can find a job that corresponds to their educational level.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Fun-damental Research Projects ECO2009-13864-C03-01 and ECO2009-13864-C03-02)

Skills heterogeneity among graduate workers: real and apparent overeducation in the Spanish labor market

This paper relaxes the assumption of homogeneous skills among graduate workers and proposes a new approach to differentiate between real and apparent overeducation based on the level of cognitive skills actually achieved by the individuals. This proposal is applied to the study of the wage effects of overeducation in the Spanish labor market using data from PIAAC. The results suggest that between a quarter and a half of the graduate workers who appear to be overeducated in the Spanish labor market could be considered as being only apparently overeducated since they show a lower level of skills than that corresponding to their educational level or, alternatively, a level of cognitive skills which is commensurate with their job. Different returns are found for each group of overeducated individuals both when compared with adequately educated peers within a similar level of education (with greater wage penalties for apparently overeducated workers) and when the comparison is done with well-matched co-workers doing a similar job (with a wage premium for real overeducation but no significant returns for apparently overeducated workers). These results point to the need of taking account of skills heterogeneity within an educational level when returns to overeducation are analyzed

Skills heterogeneity among graduate workers: real and apparent overeducation in the Spanish labor market

This paper relaxes the assumption of homogeneous skills among graduate workers and proposes a new approach to differentiate between real and apparent overeducation based on the level of cognitive skills actually achieved by the individuals. This proposal is applied to the study of the wage effects of overeducation in the Spanish labor market using data from PIAAC. The results suggest that between a quarter and a half of the graduate workers who appear to be overeducated in the Spanish labor market could be considered as being only apparently overeducated since they show a lower level of skills than that corresponding to their educational level or, alternatively, a level of cognitive skills which is commensurate with their job. Different returns are found for each group of overeducated individuals both when compared with adequately educated peers within a similar level of education (with greater wage penalties for apparently overeducated workers) and when the comparison is done with well-matched co-workers doing a similar job (with a wage premium for real overeducation but no significant returns for apparently overeducated workers). These results point to the need of taking account of skills heterogeneity within an educational level when returns to overeducation are analyzed

Efectos del desajuste educativo sobre el rendimiento privado de la educación: un análisis para el caso español (1995-2006)

En este estudio se analizan los efectos del desajuste educativo sobre los salarios en el mercado de trabajo español desde mediados de los años noventa. En primer lugar se estudia la evolución de los rendimientos educativos mediante la estimación de ecuaciones mincerianas (Mincer, 1974), estimando a continuación el rendimiento educativo en función del grado de adecuación entre la escolaridad del trabajador y los requerimientos formativos de su puesto de trabajo a partir de las especificaciones ORU (Over-Required-Undereducated) propuestas por Duncan y Hoffman (1981). Los resultados obtenidos indican que la rentabilidad de la educación ha disminuido desde mediados de los años noventa. Se observa asimismo que el rendimiento asociado a la escolaridad requerida en el empleo es mayor al que corresponde a la educación efectiva del trabajador, mientras que el rendimiento de un año adicional de sobreeducación es positivo pero inferior a la rentabilidad de un año adicional de educación requerida.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. ECO2009-13864-C03-0

Gender wage differentials and educational mismatch: an application to the Spanish case

This article aims to analyse gender wage differentials in Spain by taking into account the levels of educational attainment and by studying whether the educa-tional mismatch affects the gender wage gap. Focusing on returns to education, evidence is found on the existence of educational mismatch and on its contribu-tion to determine wages, with women suffering greater wage penalties that are associated with educational mismatch. Furthermore, although the gender wage gap is lower for individuals with low educational levels, we find that the part of this gap due to differences in returns is greater in this group. On the contrary, the gender gap is greater among highly-educated workers, but in this case most of the wage differentials are due to differences in productive characteristics. In any case, our results suggest that gender wage discrimination tends to be greater for those workers who show educational mismatch.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Fundamental Research Projects ECO2009-13864-C03-01 and ECO2009-13864-C03-02