This paper demonstrates that insiders can erect barriers to entry and skim rents by sinking costs in human capital when labour markets are otherwise perfectly contestable. The sunk costs nature of human capital investments may result from the need to satisfy ever increasing specialised skill...

Countries with high income inequality also show a strong association between parents' and children’s economic well-being; i.e. low intergenerational mobility. This study is the first to test this relationship in a between-country and within-country setup; using harmonized micro data from 18...

This study analyses the selection of recently arrived asylum seekers from Middle Eastern and African countries in Germany. The findings suggest that, on average, asylum seekers have 22 percent more years of schooling - the indicator used for human capital - when compared to same-aged persons...

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

Two main hypotheses can be found in literature on why elderly workers have a lower probability of using information technology than their younger peers: lower learning capabilities and reduced incentives to invest in human capital. I use law changes in the unemployment compensation system...

Um Hinweise für die Erträge von Investitionen in die Fähigkeiten von Kindern im Vorschulalter geben zu können, möchten wir in diesem Beitrag die Ergebnisse von Simulationen zur Diskussion stellen. Der Humankapitalerwerb wird als Funktion von kognitiven und nichtkognitiven Fähigkeiten...

This paper considers training, mobility decisions and wages together to test for the specificity of human capital contained in continuing training courses. We empirically analyse the relationship between training, mobility and wages in two ways. First, we examine the correlation between training...

In der folgenden Studie möchten wir ausgewählte Aspekte von intra- und intergenerationalen Umverteilungseffekten im System der bundesdeutschen Alterssicherung auf der Basis der Humankapitalheorie mit Simulationsmethoden analysieren. Falls es das Ziel der Politik ist, die Ungleichheit des...

We shed light on a money-for-privacy trade-off in the market for smartphone applications ("apps"). Developers offer their apps cheaper in return for greater access to personal information, and consumers choose between lower prices and more privacy. We provide evidence for this pattern using data...

Firms invest huge amounts into intangible assets. This paper explores to which extent different kinds of intangible assets are conducive to firm-level productivity. Our study contributes to the literature by simultaneously comparing productivity effects of innovative capital, human capital,...