This paper evaluates the impact of a training voucher program on establishments’ investments in further training. The voucher program that was implemented in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia increased training incentives for employees in small and medium-sized establishments by reducing training costs by 50%. The estimation is based on a quasi-experimental research design expl...

This paper examines the links between childhood conduct disorder problems and schooling and labour market outcomes net of genetic and environmental effects. The results show that individuals who experienced conduct disorder problems are more likely to leave school early, have poorer employment prospects and lower earnings. These findings are shown to be due to the genetic and environmental infl...

The Stability of Big-Five Personality Traits We use a large, nationally-representative sample of working-age adults to demonstrate that personality (as measured by the Big Five) is stable over a four-year period. Average personality changes are small and do not vary substantially across age groups. Intraindividual personality change is generally unrelated to experiencing adverse life events and...

Using panel data from a large hospital system, this paper presents estimates of the productivity effects of human capital in a team production environment. Proxying nurses’ general human capital by education and their unit-specific human capital by experience on the nursing unit, we find that greater amounts of both types of human capital significantly improve patient outcomes. Disruptions to t...

This study explores the impact of social capital on innovation by constructing a more general measure of social capital indicator consisting of generalized and institutional trust, associational activities and civic norms. We test the hypothesis that social capital has a positive impact on innovation at the national level. After controlling for R&D expenditure and human capital there is a posit...

This paper incorporates egocentric comparisons into a human capital accumulation model and studies the evolution of positive self image over time. The paper shows that the process of human capital accumulation together with egocentric comparisons imply that positive self image of a cohort is first increasing and then decreasing over time. Additionally, the paper finds that positive self image: ...

Theories based on partial equilibrium reasoning alone cannot explain the widespread negative cross-sectional correlation between parental wages and fertility, without restrictive assumptions on preferences and childcare costs. We argue that incorporating a dynamic general equilibrium analysis of returns to human capital can help explain observed empirical patterns. Other by-products of this the...

Winners and Losers among Skilled Migrants: The Case of Post-Accession Polish Migrants to the UK We test if migration leads to increased wages. We take the example of Polish migrants to the United Kingdom and focus on the mobility of well educated Poles. We offer insights into absolute and relative change in wages of the migrants, utilizing the data from the UK and Polish labor force surveys. We...

The Effect of College Education on Health We exploit exogenous variation in college completion induced by draft-avoidance behavior during the Vietnam War to examine the impact of college completion on adult mortality. Our preferred estimates imply that increasing college completion rates from the level of the state with the lowest induced rate to the highest would decrease cumulative mortality ...

Regression and neural network models of wage determination are constructed where the explanatory variables include detailed information about the impact of school curricula on future earnings. It is established that there are strong nonlinearities and interaction effects present in the relationship between curriculum and earnings. The results have important implications in the context of the hu...