Dual apprenticeship training is a market-driven form of education at the upper secondary level, taking place in firms as well as in vocational schools. So far, little is known about the impact of the business cycle on the number of apprenticeship programs offered by firms. Using panel-data of...

This paper analyzes how the costs of hiring skilled workers from the external labor market affect a firm's supply of training. Using administrative survey data with detailed information on hiring and training costs for Swiss firms, we find evidence for substantial and increasing marginal hiring...

Although interest in monopsonistic influences on labour market outcomes has revived in recent years, only a few empirical studies provide direct evidence on it. This paper analyses empirically the effect of monopsony power on pay structure, using a direct measure of labour market 'thinness.' We...

The authors compare a firm's costs and benefits of providing apprenticeship training in Austria and Switzerland, using two original micro data sets. While both countries share a number of similarities, including an extensive vocational education and training (VET) system, and a common border,...

For the first time it has been made possible to merge a German and a Swiss firm-level data set that include detailed information about costs and benefits of apprenticeship training. Previous analyses based only on aggregate data showed that the net costs of training apprentices are substantial...

Apprenticeship systems are essentially based on the voluntary participation of firms that provide (and usually also finance) training positions, often incurring considerable net training costs. One potential, yet under-researched explanation for this behavior is that firms act in accordance with...

We use a unique data set about the wage distribution that Swiss students expect for themselves ex ante, deriving parametric and non-parametric measures to capture expected wage risk. These wage risk measures are unfettered by heterogeneity which handicapped the use of actual market wage...

We investigate the impact of the presence of university dropouts on the academic success of first-time students. Our identification strategy relies on quasi-random variation in the proportion of returning dropouts. The estimated average zero effect of dropouts on first- time students' success...

Men are generally found to be more willing to compete than women and there is growing evidence that willingness to compete is a predictor of individual and gender differences in career decisions and labor market outcomes. However, most existing evidence comes from the top of the education and...

A number of studies have long shown that the probability of studying at university is influenced by the distance to the next university. This study shows for the first time that distance to university also influences the choice of subject/faculty and institution. Moreover, these findings are...