Human capital contracts give private investors the right to a share of students' future earnings in return for a fi nancial contribution during their studies. Although still rarely used, human capital contracts could not only help to complement limited public funding for higher education but...

We identify effects of age at school entry (ASE) on the development of child temperament. Our analysis is based on psychometric measures from a longitudinal cohort study of children in the Rhine-Neckar region in central Germany. In children with a higher ASE due to a birthday late in the year,...

The present paper examines the wage effects of continuous training programs using individual-level data from the German Socio Economic Panel (GSOEP). In order to account for selectivity in training participation we estimate average treatment effects (ATE and ATT) of general and firm-specific...

Wage and productivity effects of training are compared to study how the training rent is shared between employers and employees. With panel data from 1996-2002, I analyse the impact of continuing training on wages and productivity in a Cobb-Douglas production framework. Using system GMM...

In this study, we try to connect the economic literature on human capital formation with findings from neurobiology and psychology on early childhood development and self-regulation. Our basic framework for assessing the distribution of agespecific returns to investment in skills is an...

This paper establishes that individuals with an internal locus of control, i.e., who believe that reinforcement in life comes from their own actions instead of being determined by luck or destiny, earn higher wages. However, this positive effect only translates into labor income via the channel...

The German dual apprenticeship system came under pressure in recent years because enterprises were not willing to offer a sufficient number of apprenticeship positions. A frequently made argument is that the gap could be closed if more firms would be willing to incur net costs during the...

Violence at schools is a well-known problem in many societies. This paper assesses the degree of school violence in 11 European countries and analyzes the determinants of being a victim and its effect on student performance. The study draws on the international TIMSS 2003 and the British...

We estimate peer effects for fourth graders in six European countries. The identification relies on variation across classes within schools. We argue that classes within primary schools are formed roughly randomly with respect to family background. Similar to previous studies, we find sizeable...

Gregariousness is an important aspect of human life with implications for labour market outcomes. The paper examines, to the best of our knowledge for the first time for Germany, gregariousness and social interaction at the workplace and associated wage differentials. Our empirical findings with...