Labor Market

Returns to Skills

Returns to Degrees

Vocational Education

CVs for Application

Overview

Investments in education yield high returns on the labor market: Using data from the so-called "adult PISA," we show that better skills have large pay-offs on the labor market. For various educational degrees, earnings returns can be calculated over the entire working life.

The advantage of job-specific vocational education in the school-to-work transition can turn into a disadvantage over the life-cycle compared to general education programs due to continuous technological and structural change.

In an experiment with German human-resource managers, we study which skill signals on the CV during applications are important for successful entry into the labor market.