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

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

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

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

Push or Pull? An Empirical Analysis of the Demand for Individual Project Grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation

This study empirically analyses on the basis of a panel of grant requests to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF. From the results it can be concluded, that the different scientific disciplines react in very different ways to the institutional and financial framework conditions set by the funding agency. Regarding the expansion of the tertiary educational system it can concluded that it has an impact on research funding in the form of two contrary influences. These two effects offset each other to the extent that they do not suffice to explain the rising trend in terms of the number of requests observable as from the year 2000.research funding, universities, panel estimations

A Gift is not Always a Gift: Gift Exchange in a Voucher Experiment

Different from traditional gift exchange experiments, we study a field experiment where a random subsample of participants in the Swiss Labor Force Survey was sent vouchers to be used in adult training courses. Importantly for our purposes, actual voucher redemption can be traced. This gives the unique opportunity to study whether gift exchange in the form of participation in future rounds of the survey depends on the perceived usefulness of the gift. We find that the group of voucher recipients as a whole has significantly higher response rates in the survey six months after the vouchers were sent out. There is considerable heterogeneity, though. Our results point to a long-lasting gift exchange relationship for the sub-group that had redeemed their vouchers. Contrary to this group, the individuals who did not redeem their vouchers, had a response pattern that was not significantly different from the voucher non-recipients.gift exchange, reciprocity, field experiment, long-run effects