Apprenticeship training in Germany is generally considered to be an investment of companies into the human capital of their apprentices. This view is mainly based on the German cost benefit studies which testify training firms high net costs for their apprenticeships, but these results have not...

This paper investigates the rates of return and the risks of different types of educational paths after compulsory education. We distinguish a purely academic educational path from a purely vocational path and a mixed path with loops through both systems. To study the labor market outcome we...

This paper demonstrates that the share of apprentices exhibits a relatively strong seasonal pattern. This means that statistics on the share of apprentices such as those presented in official publications differ substantially from the actual yearly mean if they are measured on a date close to...

Der Beitrag untersucht theoretisch und empirisch, inwiefern betriebliche Qualifizierungsstrategien auf der Basis eines Modells zur optimalen Vorratshaltung erklärt werden können. Demnach müsste ein positiver Zusammenhang beobachtbar sein zwischen betrieblichen Qualifikationsanstrengungen und...

This paper is a first attempt to devise a methodology that allows estimating the exact impact of training on the dispersion of wages. It uses an approach originally proposed by Fields (2003) but extends it to the breakdown of inequality by population subgroups as well as to the case where the...

The transition from school-to-work has been a burning issue in most countries for the last decades. So far research on this topic has not been conclusive, and it is still not clear whether transition problems are just individual, linked to the type of education followed at uppersecondary level,...

This paper presents empirical evidence on premature terminations of apprenticeship contracts in Germany. Our novel approach uses human capital theory with a regional component as a clear-cut framework for the analysis. It derives testable hypotheses on individual decisions to finish an...

A model of occupational choice and human capital investment is developed and tested. The model allows family background to influence occupational choice via access to economic resources, differences in costs of schooling, and ability uncertainty. The model predicts that people are more sensitive...

Dieser Aufsatz fasst Resultate aus einem einzigartigen Experiment mit Weiterbildungsgutscheinen zusammen. Im Jahr 2006 wurden 2'400 Personen ein Weiterbildungsgutschein zugestellt, der sie zur Bezahlung einer frei gewählten Weiterbildung berechtigte. Das Nutzungsverhalten kann mit einer...