The issue of lifelong learning is high on the political agenda.
However, despite this political interest and the large economic literature on
human capital, the impact of work-related training on the discrepancy between
function requirements and the skills of the employee has been ignored. In this
paper we use an ordered probit model to analyze the perceived change in
discrepancy. Based on the bi-annual OSA panel from 1998 till 2002 for The
Netherlands, we show that taking a work-related course decreases the
discrepancy significantly. We correct for the endogeneity between the decision
to take a course and the change in discrepancy and we argue that ignoring the
selective decision to take a course leads to misleading conclusions about the
effect of these courses on the change in discrepancy.
Some respondents of the OSA-panel drop out between two waves. To correct for
the possibility of selective attrition we develop an Inverse Probability
Weight (IPW) estimation method for the ordered probit with an endogenous
binary regressor. From the implied marginal effects of the IPW estimation we
conclude that taking a course increases the probability to change the fit
between skills and function requirements from Bad to Good with
16~percent-point