The Consequences of Being Different - Statistical Discrimination and the School-to-Work Transition

When information about the true abilities of job-seekers and applicants are hard to get, statistical discrimination by employers can be an efficient strategy in the hiring and wage setting process. But statistical discrimination can induce costs, if labor relations cannot be terminated in the short term and wages are fixed over a certain period. In this paper we use a unique longitudinal survey that follows the PISA 2000 students in their educational and work-life career. We test whether deviance in the PISA test scores from what one would have predicted based on observable characteristics, influences the probability to succeed in the transition from compulsory school into a firm-based apprenticeship and whether it can explain differences of the individual performances during training. Our results suggest that hard-to-get information plays a significant role in the transition, but not always in a symmetric manner.statistical discrimination, school-to-work transition, PISA

Are the Elderly a Threat to Educational Expenditures?

Empirical research has given cause to fear that the demographic ageing in industrialized countries is likely to exert a negative impact on educational spending. These papers have linked the share of the elderly with the per capita or per pupil spending on education at the local, state-wide or national level, trying to control for other exogenous effects. Although this line of research shows in many cases a negative correlation between the shares of elderly people and educational expenditures, a causal link is difficult to prove. This paper uses a unique and representative survey of Swiss voters of all age groups. The analysis shows that elderly people present a clear tendency to be less willing to spend money on education. They would rather prefer to spend public resources on health and social security than on education. Furthermore the paper shows that much of the negative correlation between the shares of elderly and educational spending is the result of the elderly being politically more conservative and in general less inclined to pay for expenditures in the public sector as a whole.public finance, education finance, demographics, survey, Switzerland

Demographic Change and Public Education Spending: A Conflict between Young and Old?

Demographic change in industrial countries will influence educational spending in potentially two ways. On the one hand, the decline in the number of school-age children should alleviate the financial pressure. On the other hand, the theoretical/empirical literature has established that the concomitantly increasing proportion of elderly in the population can influence the propensity of politicians to spend on education. Using a panel of the Swiss Cantons for the period from 1990 to 2002, we find that the education system has exhibited little elasticity in adjusting to changes in the school-age population, and that the share of the elderly population has a significantly negative influence on the willingness to spend on public education.public finance, education finance, demographics, panel estimates, Switzerland

Regional Effects on Employer Provided Training: Evidence from Apprenticeship Training in Switzerland

This paper uses regional variation in labor markets, the industry structure and the educational system to explain the training decisions of firms. Using a representative firm-level data set, the results show that firms are less likely to offer training if the number of competing firms situated in the same geographical area is high. Furthermore, the supply of potential apprentices affects the training decision positively through an improved matching process. In addition, the expected ability of apprentices also has a positive impact, whereas a more developed system of full-time schooling options for school leavers reduces the likelihood of a firm to offer training.apprenticeship training, regional labor markets

Money Matters - Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Field Experiment with Vouchers for Adult Training

This paper presents the results of a randomized experiment analyzing the use of vouchers for adult training. In 2006, 2,400 people were issued with a training voucher which they were entitled to use in payment for a training course of their choice. User behavior was compared with a control group of 14,000 people. People in the treatment and in the control group were not aware at any time that they were part of an experiment. The experiment shows that the voucher had a significant causal impact on participation in training modules. Nevertheless, the increase was partially offset by a deadweight loss in excess of fifty percent.field experiment, voucher, adult education, training, Switzerland

Regional effects on employer-provided training: Evidence fromapprenticeship training in Switzerland

"This paper uses regional variation in labor markets, the industry structure and the education system to explain the training decisions of firms. Using a representative firmlevel data set, the results show that firms are less likely to provide training if the number of competing firms situated in the same geographical area is high. Furthermore, the supply of potential apprentices affects the training decision positively through an improved matching process. In addition, the expected ability of apprentices also has a positive impact, whereas a more developed system of full-time schooling options for young people who have completed their compulsory schooling reduces the likelihood of a firm providing training." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information Kurzfassung (deutsch) Executive summary (English)Betrieb, Ausbildungsverhalten, betriebliche Berufsausbildung, regionale Disparität, regionale Faktoren, regionaler Arbeitsmarkt, Wirtschaftsstruktur, Wettbewerb, Berufsbildungssystem, duales System, schulische Berufsausbildung, Personalpolitik, Bildungsökonomie, Schweiz

Ausbildungskosten und -nutzen und die betriebliche Nachfrage nach Lehrlingen

Considerable improvements in the measurement of costs and benefits of apprenticeship training from the perspective of training companies have been made in the past few years. They have helped to better understand, why some firms train and others do not. With these micro-data sets we are also able to analyse measures that would help to increase the supply of training posts in an economy. A simulation of the impact of financial incentives on the training propensity of firms is made and shows that such a measure would be highly inefficient from an economic perspective. Further improvements in data are expected and should give valuable guidance in the design of educational, fiscal and labour market policies with respect to apprenticeship trainin

Der Einfluss des lokalen Hochschulangebots auf die Studienwahl

Zusammenfassung: Verschiedene Studien belegen, dass das lokale Hochschulangebot bzw. die Distanz zur nächstgelegenen Universität das Studienverhalten beeinflusst: Die Wahrscheinlichkeit, ein Studium zu ergreifen, steigt mit der geographischen Nähe zu einer Hochschule. In der vorliegenden Studie wird die Frage auf die Wahl des Studienfachs sowie der Hochschulinstitution ausgedehnt und in einem humankapitaltheoretischen Ansatz am Beispiel der ETH Zürich, der Universität Luzern sowie der pädagogischen Hochschulen analysiert. Auf der Basis einer repräsentativen Maturandenbefragung in der deutschsprachigen Schweiz (n = 1454) kann regressionsanalytisch gezeigt werden, dass die Distanz zur nächstgelegenen Hochschule auch einen Einfluss auf die Fächer- und die Institutionenwahl hat. Die Befunde sind hochschulpolitisch von Bedeutung, weil sie Hinweise auf eine angebotsinduzierte Studiennachfrage liefern. Zudem zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass bei Studierenden mit höherem sozioökonomischen Status das Studienverhalten durch die Distanz nicht beeinflusst wird, was als Indiz dafür gewertet werden kann, dass die Bedeutung der Entfernung einer Hochschule in Wirklichkeit auf Unterschieden in den Kosten eines Studiums gründe

Sibling Rivalry: A Six Country Comparison

In this paper we analyse with the PISA data on literacy achievement of fifteen-year-old pupils in six member countries of the OECD, whether the fact of having many siblings affects the individual educational outcome. The hypothesis that we test is whether parents? resources matter for educational outcome. If they do and parents are constraint in their budgets, siblings will rival for the limited parental resources and thereby negatively affect educational outcome. The hypothesis is tested by regressing the literacy achievement on the number of siblings within a family and also by regressing directly forms of parental resources on the family size. We find significant family size effects in all six countries analysed but we also find significant differences in the effects between countries. Although sibling rivalry is relevant in all countries, it seems that some countries can compensate better than others and thereby achieve higher equity in the educational system

Self-selection into teaching: the role of teacher education institutions

Good teachers are critical for a high-quality educational system. This in turns leads to the question of who is interested in going into the teaching profession. Although research has been done on the professional careers of teachers, the issue of self-selection into teacher education has been mostly overlooked until now. The analyses contained in our study are based on a representative sampling of over 1500 high-school students in Switzerland shortly before graduation. The findings indicate that there is a self-selection process with regard to courses of study at teaching training institutions, which is reinforced by institutional and structural characteristics of the types of higher education institutions and the courses of study they offer. This can clearly be seen in comparison with high-school students preparing to study at another type of higher educational institution (university). Accordingly, the findings of this paper tend to indicate that the choices made by future teachers depend to a large extent also on where and how teachers are trained