Marc Riudavets Barcons 

JOB MARKET PAPER:

The Impact of Apprenticeship Contracts in the Labor Market [paper]

Abstract: This paper studies the effects of apprenticeship contracts on the labor market trajectories of young workers using high-quality administrative data from Spain. To address endogeneity issues related to contract use, I exploit a reform aimed at promoting apprenticeship contracts by temporarily removing external certification requirements and raising the age eligibility threshold from 25 to 30 years. I show that after the reform, there was an increase in the use of apprenticeship contracts. However, employment did not expand. The increase in apprenticeship contracts was crowded out by a decline in other types of contracts in the economy. Moreover, I show that workers who turned between 25 to 30 when the reform was passed and became apprentices experienced an average wage decrease of about 28 % in the short run, and of 11 % in the long run compared to workers similar in observables from those same cohorts that did not take an apprenticeship. Finally, analyzing a subsidy aimed at converting apprenticeship contracts into open-ended contracts, I find that, while the take-up rate is relatively low, the subsidy had a positive effect on improving the labor market attachment of the recipients. 

PUBLISHED PAPERS : 

• Teacher Value Added and Gender Gaps in Educational Outcomes (Published, Economics of Education Review), with Andrés Barrios Fernandez [CEP Working Paper]

• School closures and student achievement, evidence from a high stakes exam (Journal of the Finnish Economic Assiociation), with Roope Uusitalo

Working papers and ongoing projects:

• The Interaction between Minimum Wages and Collective Bargaining: Explaining Wage Spillovers, with Ferran Elias 

• The Effect of Regularization on Migrant Labor Exploitation, with Francesco Amodio, Elia Benveniste and Mario Carillo