Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine spillover effects across differently educated workers. For the first time, the authors consider “reverse” spillover effects, i.e. spillover effects from secondary-educated workers with dual vocational education and training (VET) to...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence for individual educational investment decisions and to investigate the relative importance of two factors, the type of education (vocational vs academic) and subject area (e.g. commercial or health), in determining variance in...

Summary In establishments with a works council and 200 and more employees, the Works Council Act requires the paid leave of absence of one works councillor, subjected to collective bargaining and works agreements. This paper analyses the de-facto distribution of this legal provision and shows...

Summary The decision to revise an educational choice has hardly been analyzed in previous research. Dropping out is only one possible choice, and we distinguish between dropping out (leaving the apprenticeship system) and changing or upgrading (staying within the apprenticeship system) as three...

The innovation systems approach, which has taken a prominent position in the academic literature, has also influenced policy-makers around the globe. Most research analyses innovation systems taking a national, regional or sectoral perspective, following a ‘technological imperative’. Yet...

Reversing the original signaling model, this study explains how employers signal the non-observable quality of their workplace and thereby reduce labor shortages. Based on a company data set of 204 German firms, the authors find, as predicted by their theory, that the existence of a works...