In this paper, the efficiency of human capital investments is evaluated in the light of inadequate educational careers and skill obsolescence. Assuming heterogeneous returns to schooling and overeducation we use the potential outcome approach to measure the causal effect of human capital...

This paper focuses on the causal effect of overqualification on earnings. Although the issue of overqualification has recently been addressed by quite a huge body of literature there are only few studies examining the causal effect of overqualification on earnings in the sense of Rubins...

This paper analysis the robustness of the causal relationship between schooling and wages. Different estimators and instruments are compared under the assumption of heterogeneous returns to schooling. A data set from Germany is employed. It is shown that the results depend crucially on the...

This paper investigates the evolution of wages and the recent tendency to rising wage inequality in Germany, based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for 1984 to 2004. Between 1984 and 1994 the wage distribution was fairly stable. Wage inequality started to increase around 1994 in...