Professional competencies are a key factor in gauging how employable a graduate is. This paper demonstrates that individuals who have best developed the competencies which firms feel to be most important are more likely to be in a position to obtain a job. To this end, we have developed an indicator that measures the proximity between the relative…

We provide first evidence regarding the direct impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity. To do so, we rely on representative linked employer-employee panel data for Belgium covering the period 1999-2006. Controlling for simultaneity issues, time-invariant unobserved workplace characteristics, cohort effects and dynamics in the…

Previous research on educational mismatch concentrates on estimating its labor market consequences but with a focus on wage and salary workers. This paper examines the far less studied influence of mismatch on the self-employed. Using a sample of workers in science and engineering fields, results show larger earnings penalties for mismatch among…

This study investigates the incidence of over-education amongst recent Australian bachelor degree graduates and its effect on their earnings. We find that between 24% and 37% of graduates were over-educated shortly after course completion, with over-education most common amongst young females and least common amongst older females. Over-education…

This paper examines whether conclusions about the relationship between education and labor market risk depend on the use of commonly applied procedures to clean data of extreme values. The analysis uses fifteen years of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to demonstrate that conclusions about the relationship between education and labor…

This paper estimates the returns to university selectivity in the UK using administrative data on applications and admissions to university, linked to a survey of graduates three and a half years after graduation. It compares students who indicated preferences for, and were conditionally accepted to, the same universities--but who attended…

This paper examines the earnings returns to learning that takes place following the conventional "school-to-work" stage of the life-course. We operationalise such "lifelong learning" as the attainment of certified qualifications in adulthood, following the completion of the first period of continuous full-time education. Using…

Two-year colleges are an important part of the higher education system in the United States but there are concerns as to how attendance at these institutions affects educational attainment and labor market outcomes. This paper uses data from a nationally representative survey to examine the impact of students beginning their college career at a…

Prior research on the labor market success of secondary vocational education has produced mixed results, with several studies finding wage gains only for individuals who work in training-related occupations. We contribute to this debate by focusing on a single occupation and organization and by comparing the careers of employees with and without…

Panel data on MBA graduates is used in an attempt to empirically distinguish between human capital and signaling models of education. The existence of employment observations prior to MBA enrollment allows for the control of unobserved ability or selection into MBA programs (through the use of individual fixed effects). In addition, variation in…

This paper uses panel data and econometric methods to estimate the incidence and the dynamic properties of overskilling among employed individuals. The paper begins by asking whether there is extensive overskilling in the labour market, and whether overskilling differs by education pathway. The answer to both questions is yes. The paper continues…

A worker is said to be overeducated if he/she has acquired more education than is required to perform his/her job. In the absence of data measuring the number of years of schooling required to perform particular jobs, we propose a new approach to testing for overeducation. Overeducation is confirmed if we observe that education levels rose in jobs…

The wage and job satisfaction impacts for over-educated workers have been well-documented; yet little attention has been paid to the consequences for firms. In this paper we examine over-education from the perspective of the workplace. Using linked employer-employee data for the United Kingdom, we derive the standard worker-level penalties on…

Age based school entry laws force parents and educators to consider an important tradeoff: though students who are the youngest in their school cohort typically have poorer academic performance, on average, they have slightly higher educational attainment. In this paper we document that for a large cohort of California and Texas natives the school…

This paper addresses the economic returns on tertiary degrees obtained in ages above 30 for individuals with upper-secondary schooling in light of current ideas on lifelong learning. Sweden is a case in point: Swedish tertiary education is open to older students, and labor market legislation supports employees who take a leave to study. The…