Human Capital and Career Success:Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data

Denmark’s registry data provide accurate and complete career history data along withdetailed personal characteristics (e.g., education, gender, work experience, tenure andothers) for the population of Danish workers longitudinally. By using such data from 1992 to2002, we provide rigorous evidence for the first time for the population of workers in an entireeconomy (as opposed to case study evidence) on the effects of the nature and scope ofhuman capital on career success (measured by appointments to top management). First, weconfirm the beneficial effect of acquiring general human capital formally through schooling forcareer success, as well as the gender gap in career success rates. Second, broadening thescope of human capital by experiencing various occupations (becoming a generalist) is foundto be advantageous for career success. Third, initial human capital earned through formalschooling and subsequent human capital obtained informally on the job are found to becomplements in the production of career success. Fourth, though there is a large body of theliterature on the relationship between firm-specific human capital and wages, the relativevalue of firm-specific human capital has been rarely studied in the context of career success.We find that it is more beneficial to broaden the breadth of human capital within the firm thanwithout, pointing to the significance of firm-specific human capital for career success...