IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/adbewp/0476.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

In Search of a Better Match: Qualification Mismatches in Developing Asia

Author

Listed:
  • Chua, Kenn

    (Asian Development Bank)

  • Chun, Natalie

    (Asian Development Bank)

Abstract

This paper empirically tests the role of search frictions in driving qualification mismatches in the labor market. Using new data from several low-income economies in urban Asia we find that overeducation in less developed labor markets are more pervasive than in more developed economies. Moreover, frictions related to search costs are a crucial determinant of match quality resulting in socially inefficient talent misallocation. Our findings suggest scope for policy interventions that improve worker-job matches with potential gains to wages and aggregate productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Chua, Kenn & Chun, Natalie, 2016. "In Search of a Better Match: Qualification Mismatches in Developing Asia," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 476, Asian Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:adbewp:0476
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/180978/ewp-476.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sicherman, Nachum & Galor, Oded, 1990. "A Theory of Career Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 169-192, February.
      • Galor, Oded & Sicherman, Nachum, 1988. "A Theory of Career Mobility," Working Papers 51, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    2. Mathan Satchi & Jonathan Temple, 2009. "Labor Markets and Productivity in Developing Countries," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 183-204, January.
    3. Sicherman, Nachum, 1991. ""Overeducation" in the Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(2), pages 101-122, April.
    4. Mathan Satchi & Jonathan Temple, 2009. "Labor Markets and Productivity in Developing Countries," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 183-204, January.
    5. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Assignment of Workers to Jobs in an Economy with Coordination Frictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 996-1025, October.
    6. Oded Galor & Nachum Sicherman, 1988. "A Theory of Career Mobility," Working Papers 1988-27, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    7. Sattinger, Michael, 1993. "Assignment Models of the Distribution of Earnings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 831-880, June.
    8. Robst, John, 2007. "Education and job match: The relatedness of college major and work," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 397-407, August.
    9. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vichet Sam, 2018. "Unemployment duration and educational mismatches: An empirical investigation among graduates in Cambodia," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(3), pages 1554-1565.
    2. SAM, Vichet, 2018. "Overeducation among graduates in developing countries: What impact on economic growth?," MPRA Paper 87674, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Celia P. Vera & Bruno Jiménez, 2022. "Do immigrants take or create natives' jobs? Evidence of Venezuelan immigration in Peru," Working Papers 2022-18, Lima School of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pérez Navarro, Marco Aurelio, 2021. "University graduates’ job-education mismatches in the Spanish labour market," MPRA Paper 109881, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Carolina Castagnetti & Luisa Rosti & Marina Toepfer, 2017. "Overeducation and the Gender Pay Gap in Italy. A Double Selectivity Approach," DEM Working Papers Series 144, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    3. Kiersztyn, Anna, 2013. "Stuck in a mismatch? The persistence of overeducation during twenty years of the post-communist transition in Poland," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 78-91.
    4. Inmaculada Garc�a-Mainar & V�ctor M. Montuenga-G�mez, 2017. "Subjective educational mismatch and signalling in Spain," Documentos de Trabajo dt2017-03, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Zaragoza.
    5. Kampelmann, Stephan & Rycx, François, 2012. "The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 918-931.
    6. L. Cattani & G. Guidetti & G. Pedrini, 2014. "Assessing the incidence and wage effects of overeducation among Italian graduates using a new measure for educational requirements," Working Papers wp939, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    7. Oliver Fabel & Razvan Pascalau, 2013. "Recruitment of Seemingly Overeducated Personnel: Insider--Outsider Effects on Fair Employee Selection Practices," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 57-82, February.
    8. Stephen Rubb, 2013. "Overeducation, undereducation and asymmetric information in occupational mobility," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(6), pages 741-751, February.
    9. Philippe Wanner & Marco Pecoraro & Massimiliano Tani, 2021. "Does Educational Mismatch Affect Emigration Behaviour?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(4), pages 959-995, November.
    10. Manuel Salas-Velasco, 2021. "Mapping the (mis)match of university degrees in the graduate labor market," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 55(1), pages 1-23, December.
    11. Juan Acosta-Ballesteros & María del Pilar Osorno-del Rosal & Olga María Rodríguez-Rodríguez, 2018. "Overeducation of Young Workers in Spain: How Much Does the First Job Matter? Social Indicators Research," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 109-139, July.
    12. Kucel, Aleksander & Byrne, Delma, 2008. "Are Over-educated People Insiders or Outsiders? A Case of Job Search Methods and Over-education in UK," Papers WP258, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    13. Zakariya, Zainizam, 2014. "Wage Effect of Over-Education and Mismatch in Malaysia: A Random Effect Approach," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 48(2), pages 3-17.
    14. Olga Kupets, 2015. "Education in transition and job mismatch: Evidence from the skills survey in non-EU transition economies," KIER Working Papers 915, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    15. Kihong Park, 2018. "Vertical and horizontal mismatches and career mobility: evidence from female college graduates," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 32(2), pages 109-125, November.
    16. Schwientek, Caroline, 2016. "Are immigrants overeducated in Germany? Determinants and wage effects of educational mismatch," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 07/2016, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    17. Sucharita Ghosh & Emanuele Grassi, 2020. "Overeducation and overskilling in the early careers of PhD graduates: Does international migration reduce labour market mismatch?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(4), pages 915-944, August.
    18. McGuinness Seamus & Whelan Adele & Bergin Adele, 2016. "Is There a Role for Higher Education Institutions in Improving the Quality of First Employment?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 1-15, October.
    19. Stephen Rubb, 2006. "Educational Mismatches and Earnings: Extensions of Occupational Mobility Theory and Evidence of Human Capital Depreciation," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 135-154.
    20. Boll, Christina & Leppin, Julian Sebastian, 2013. "Unterwertige Beschäftigung von Akademikerinnen und Akademikern: Umfang, Ursachen, Einkommenseffekte und Beitrag zur geschlechtsspezifischen Lohnlücke," HWWI Policy Papers 75, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asia; labor markets; matching; qualification mismatches; search;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:adbewp:0476. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Orlee Velarde (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eradbph.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.