IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Returns to Apprenticeship Training in Austria: Evidence from Failed Firms

Author Info

  • Josef Fersterer
  • Jörn-Steffen Pischke

Abstract

Little is known about the payoffs to apprenticeship training in the German speaking countries for theparticipants. OLS estimates suggest that the returns are similar to those of other types of schooling. However, there is a lot of heterogeneity in the types of apprenticeships offered, and institutional descriptions suggest that there might be an important element of selection in who obtains an apprenticeship, and what type. In order to overcome the resulting ability bias we estimate returns to apprenticeship training for apprentices in failed firms in Austria. When a firm fails, current apprentices cannot complete their training in this firm. Because apprentices will be at different stages in their apprenticeship at that time, the failure of a firm will manipulate the length of the apprenticeship period completed for some apprentices. The time to the firm failure therefore serves as an instrument for the length of the apprenticeship completed both at the original firm and at otherfirms. We find instrumental variables returns which are similar or larger than the OLS returns in our sample, indicating relatively little selection.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.

File URL: http://cee.lse.ac.uk/ceedps/ceedp88.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE in its series CEE Discussion Papers with number 0088.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: Feb 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cep:ceedps:0088
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://cee.lse.ac.uk/publications.htm

Keywords: Human capital; returns to schooling; firm-based training; ability bias;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
  • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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.:

as in new window
  1. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 1990. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?," NBER Working Papers 3572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Wolfgang Franz & Joachim Inkmann & Winfried Pohlmeier & Volker Zimmermann, 2000. "Young and Out in Germany (On Youths? Chances of Labor Market Entrance in Germany)," NBER Chapters, in: Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries, pages 381-426 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Hilary Steedman, 2001. "Benchmarking apprenticeship: UK and continental Europe compared," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20098, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  4. Fersterer, Josef & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2000. "Smoking, Discount Rates, and Returns to Education," IZA Discussion Papers 126, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  5. Paul Ryan, 2001. "The School-to-Work Transition: A Cross-National Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 34-92, March.
  6. Richard B. Freeman & Lawrence F. Katz, 1995. "Differences and Changes in Wage Structures," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number free95-1.
  7. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-29, October.
  8. Ichino, Andrea & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 1998. "Lower and Upper Bounds of Returns to Schooling: An Exercise in IV estimation with Different Instruments," CEPR Discussion Papers 2007, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  9. James Heckman, 1993. "Assessing Clinton's Program on Job Training, Workfare, and Education in the Workplace," NBER Working Papers 4428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Wolfgang Franz & Joachim Inkmann & Winfried Pohlmeier & Volker Zimmermann, 1997. "Young and Out in Germany: On the Youths' Chances of Labor Market Entrance in Germany," NBER Working Papers 6212, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-75, March.
  12. Fersterer, Josef & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2003. "Are Austrian returns to education falling over time?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 73-89, February.
  13. Nickell, Stephen & Bell, Brian, 1996. "Changes in the Distribution of Wages and Unemployment in OECD Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 302-08, May.
  14. Hilary Steedman, 2001. "Benchmarking Apprenticeship: UK and Continental Europe Compared," CEP Discussion Papers dp0513, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  15. Freeman, Richard B. & Katz, Lawrence F. (ed.), 1995. "Differences and Changes in Wage Structures," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226261607.
  16. Freeman, Richard & Schettkat, Ronald, 2001. "Skill Compression, Wage Differentials, and Employment: Germany vs the US," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 582-603, July.
  17. Andrea Ichino & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2004. "The Long-Run Educational Cost of World War II," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 57-86, January.
  18. Daron Acemoglu & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 1998. "Why Do Firms Train? Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(1), pages 79-119.
  19. David Soskice, 1994. "Reconciling Markets and Institutions: The German Apprenticeship System," NBER Chapters, in: Training and the Private Sector: International Comparisons, pages 25-60 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  20. J.D. Angrist & Guido W. Imbens & D.B. Rubin, 1993. "Identification of Causal Effects Using Instrumental Variables," NBER Technical Working Papers 0136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  21. Gerard A. Pfann & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2001. "Two-Sided Learning, Labor Turnover and Displacement," NBER Working Papers 8273, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  22. David G. Blanchflower & Richard B. Freeman, 2000. "Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number blan00-1.
  23. Paul Ryan, 2001. "The School-to-Work Transition: A Cross-National Perspective: Corrigendum," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 767-767, September.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:ceedps:0088. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ()

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.