Investment in human capital is a central issue in the literature on economic growth. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the economic incentives for investment in university education across countries. An empirical investigation of earnings for private-sector engineers and business administrators in seven European countries - Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom - is presented. The analysis is based on a large micro-data set that is ideally suited for international comparisons. It contains information on earnings, age, occupation, responsibility level, industry and firm size. Standardized wage premia for university vs. high school level positions are computed for each country and field of work. The results indicate that the wage premia are higher for business administrators than for engineers in all the countries considered and that the premia for engineers are remarkably similar across countries. Aggregation over fields of work, which is not uncommon in studies on the returns to education, therefore seems to be questionable practice when comparing the returns in different countries.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Research Institute of Industrial Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number
495.
Length: 45 pages Date of creation: 01 Mar 1998 Date of revision:
25 Aug 1999 Publication status: Forthcoming in Swedish Economic Policy Review, 1999. Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0495
Contact details of provider: Postal: Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 665 4500 Fax: +46 8 665 4599 Email: Web page: http://www.ifn.se/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Elisabeth Gustafsson).
Find related papers by JEL classification: J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)