This paper studies how different demographic groups respond to incentives by comparing performance in the GRE examination in "high" and "low" stakes situations. The high stakes situation is the real GRE examination and the low stakes situation is a voluntary experimental section of the GRE that...

This paper analyzes potential gender differences in competitive environments using a sample of over 100,000 professional tennis matches. We focus on two phenomena of the labor and sports economics literature: the hot-hand and clutch-player effects. First, we find strong evidence for the hot-hand...

The apprenticeship system is the most important source of formal post-secondary training in Germany. Our paper contributes to the ongoing debate as to why firms are willing to invest in such training even though many apprentices will leave the training firm soon after completion of the...

This paper offers and tests a theory of training whereby workers do not pay for general training they receive. The crucial ingredient in our model is that the current employer has superior information about the worker’s ability relative to other firms. This informational advantage gives the...

This paper uses firm level panel data of firm provided training to estimate its impact on productivity and wages. To this end the strategy proposed by Ackerberg, Caves and Frazer (2006) for estimating production functions to control for the endogeneity of input factors and training is applied....

The paper examines the extent of apprenticeships in the first job for a cohort of young men entering the labour market at age 16 in the late 1970s. The impact of the apprenticeship on employment duration and early labour market mobility is estimated. The data set used is the National Child...

Using longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study, this paper examines gender differences in the determinants of work-related training. The analysis covers a crucial decade in the working lives of the 1958 birth cohort of young men and women – the years spanning the...

Building upon some education studies finding that cooperative behaviour in class yields better achievements among students, this paper presents a simple model showing that free riding incentives lead to an insufficient degree of cooperation between schoolmates, which in turn decreases the...