Four Essays In Empirical Labour Economics PDF Download

Zusammenfassung: This dissertation includes four studies in the field of empirical labour economics with a focus on risk in labour markets. In Chapter 1 the effect of an employment subsidy programme on early apprenticeship dropout is evaluated. The programme can be considered a preventive intervention to avoid unsuccessful labour market careers. Even though the subsidy provides strong incentives to discourage dropout, the programme does not significantly lower dropout from apprenticeship. Chapter 2 presents an analysis on the influence of individual risk attitudes on job mobility and the consequences for wage growth in the early career. The analysis is based on the proposition that job change is a risky move, since it involves substantial costs, whereas future benefits cannot be entirely foreseen. Accordingly, the results show that individuals with higher degree of risk aversion change jobs less frequently during their early career. Moreover, since risk-averse individuals demand more compensation for the risk associated with changing jobs, the observed wage increases are on average higher for risk-averse than for more risk-tolerant individuals. Chapter 3 investigates the role of skill mismatch for earnings variation among individuals with the same education. The analysis uses a general measure of skill mismatch which represents labour market frictions on a broad scale. The results show that skill mismatch is an important factor for wage inequality within education groups. Overeducation as a specific measure for skill mismatch among university graduates contributes to wage inequality due to differences in the mean and dispersion of wages between matched and mismatched workers. Chapter 4 examines whether occupational earnings risks are compensated in a lifetime perspective. The results show, that only the permanent component of earnings risk is compensated by higher wages while transitory risks are associated with a wage penalty. The consideration of heterogeneous risk attitudes and occupational mobility provides a nuanced view on the risk compensation in wages: Firstly, compensation for earnings risk is considerably higher for less risk averse workers. Secondly, the compensating wage differential is lower after an occupational change suggesting a trade-off between occupational mobility and compensation for earnings risk