Apprenticeship Training in Germany - Investment or Productivity Driven?

enterprises were not willing to offer a sufficient number of apprenticeship positions. Afrequently made argument is that the gap could be closed if more firms would be willingto incur net costs during the training period. This paper investigates for the first timewhether German enterprises on average indeed incur net costs during the apprenticeshipperiod, i.e. if the impact of an increase in the share of apprentices on contemporaryprofits is negative. The paper uses the representative linked employer-employee paneldata of the IAB (LIAB) and takes into account possible endogeneity of training intensityand unobserved heterogeneity in the profit estimation by employing panel system GMMmethods...