Alumni
IWH Alumni The IWH maintains contact with its former employees worldwide. We involve our alumni in our work and keep them informed, for example, with a newsletter. We also plan…
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The Value of Early-Career Skills
Christina Langer, Simon Wiederhold
CESifo Working Paper,
No. 10288,
2023
Abstract
We develop novel measures of early-career skills that are more detailed, comprehensive, and labor-market-relevant than existing skill proxies. We exploit that skill requirements of apprenticeships in Germany are codified in state-approved, nationally standardized apprenticeship plans. These plans provide more than 13,000 different skills and the exact duration of learning each skill. Following workers over their careers in administrative data, we find that cognitive, social, and digital skills acquired during apprenticeship are highly – yet differently – rewarded. We also document rising returns to digital and social skills since the 1990s, with a more moderate increase in returns to cognitive skills.
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Individualism, Human Capital Formation, and Labor Market Success
Katharina Hartinger, Sven Resnjanskij, Jens Ruhose, Simon Wiederhold
CESifo Working Paper,
No. 9391,
2021
Abstract
There is an ongoing debate about the economic effects of individualism. We establish that individualism leads to better educational and labor market outcomes. Using data from the largest international adult skill assessment, we identify the effects of individualism by exploiting variation between migrants at the origin country, origin language, and person level. Migrants from more individualistic cultures have higher cognitive skills and larger skill gains over time. They also invest more in their skills over the life-cycle, as they acquire more years of schooling and are more likely to participate in adult education activities. In fact, individualism is more important in explaining adult skill formation than any other cultural trait that has been emphasized in previous literature. In the labor market, more individualistic migrants earn higher wages and are less often unemployed. We show that our results cannot be explained by selective migration or omitted origin-country variables.
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Behavioral Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment
Henning Hermes, Philipp Lergetporer, Frauke Peter, Simon Wiederhold
CESifo Working Paper,
No. 9282,
2021
Abstract
Children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to benefit more from early child care, but are substantially less likely to be enrolled. We study whether reducing behavioral barriers in the application process increases enrollment in child care for lower-SES children. In our RCT in Germany with highly subsidized child care (n > 600), treated families receive application information and personal assistance for applications. For lower-SES families, the treatment increases child care application rates by 21 pp and enrollment rates by 16 pp. Higher-SES families are not affected by the treatment. Thus, alleviating behavioral barriers closes half of the SES gap in early child care enrollment.
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Can Mentoring Alleviate Family Disadvantage in Adolescence? A Field Experiment to Improve Labor-Market Prospects
Sven Resnjanskij, Jens Ruhose, Simon Wiederhold, Ludger Woessmann
Abstract
We study a mentoring program that aims to improve the labor-market prospects of school-attending adolescents from disadvantaged families by offering them a university-student mentor. Our RCT investigates program effectiveness on three outcome dimensions that are highly predictive of adolescents later labor-market success: math grades, patience-social skills, and labor-market orientation. For low-SES adolescents, the one-to-one mentoring increases a combined index of the outcomes by half a standard deviation after one year, with significant increases in each dimension. Part of the treatment effect is mediated by establishing mentors as attachment figures who provide guidance for the future. The mentoring is not effective for higher-SES adolescents. The results show that substituting lacking family support by other adults can help disadvantaged children at adolescent age.
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The Effects of Graduating from High School in a Recession: College Investments, Skill Formation, and Labor-Market Outcomes
Franziska Hampf, Marc Piopiunik, Simon Wiederhold
CESifo Working Paper,
No. 8252,
2020
Abstract
We investigate the short- and long-term effects of economic conditions at high-school graduation as a source of exogenous variation in the labor-market opportunities of potential college entrants. Exploiting business cycle fluctuations across birth cohorts for 28 developed countries, we find that bad economic conditions at high-school graduation increase college enrollment and graduation. They also affect outcomes in later life, increasing cognitive skills and improving labor-market success. Outcomes are affected only by the economic conditions at high-school graduation, but not by those during earlier or later years. Recessions at high-school graduation narrow the gender gaps in numeracy skills and labor-market success.
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Financial Incentives and Loan Officer Behavior: Multitasking and Allocation of Effort Under an Incomplete Contract
Patrick Behr, Alejandro H. Drexler, Reint E. Gropp, Andre Guettler
Abstract
In this paper we investigate the implications of providing loan officers with a compensation structure that rewards loan volume and penalizes poor performance versus a fixed wage unrelated to performance. We study detailed transaction information for more than 45,000 loans issued by 240 loan officers of a large commercial bank in Europe. We examine the three main activities that loan officers perform: monitoring, originating, and screening. We find that when the performance of their portfolio deteriorates, loan officers increase their effort to monitor existing borrowers, reduce loan origination, and approve a higher fraction of loan applications. These loans, however, are of above-average quality. Consistent with the theoretical literature on multitasking in incomplete contracts, we show that loan officers neglect activities that are not directly rewarded under the contract, but are in the interest of the bank. In addition, while the response by loan officers constitutes a rational response to a time allocation problem, their reaction to incentives appears myopic in other dimensions.
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Human capital in transformation – The example of the new Länder
Ralf Müller
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 126,
2000
Abstract
Zwischen der Humankapitalausstattung und der Produktivität von Volkswirtschaften gibt es einen engen Zusammenhang. Folglich könnte für die Erklärung der Produktivi-tätslücke zwischen den alten und neuen Ländern neben anderen Faktoren auch Unter-schiede in der Ausstattung mit Humankapital eine Rolle spielen. Die Analyse zeigt je-doch, dass Humankapitalnachteile der neuen Länder nach 1990 weitgehend auf im Ar-beitsprozess gebildetes Wissen beschränkt waren, die im Zeitverlauf an Bedeutung ver-loren. Für im formalen Bildungssystem (Schulen, Universitäten) gebildetes Humankapi-tal bestand dagegen schon zu Beginn der Transformation ein hohes Niveau, das gegen-über den alten Ländern bis heute eher Vorteile aufweist. Letztlich erweist sich das Hu-mankapital für die neuen Länder eher als ein nachfrageseitiges denn als ein angebotssei-tiges Problem. Dies gründet auf der Branchen- und Unternehmensstruktur der neuen Länder, die im Vergleich zu den alten Ländern geringe Qualifikationsansprüche stellt.
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