Edwin Leuven

Overeducation and Mismatch in the Labor Market

This paper surveys the economics literature on overeducation. The original motivation to study this topic were reports that the strong increase in the number of college graduates in the early 1970s in the US led to a decrease in the returns to college education. We argue that Duncan and Hoffman’s augmented wage equation – the workhorse model in the overeducation literature – in which wages are regressed on years of overschooling, years of required schooling and years of underschooling is at best loosely related to this original motivation. We discuss measurement and estimation issues and give an overview of the main empirical findings in this literature. Finally we given an appraisal of the economic lessons learned.

The effect of financial rewards on students' achievement: Evidence from a randomized experiment

This Paper reports a randomized field experiment in which first year economics and business students at the University of Amsterdam could earn financial rewards for passing all first year requirements before the start of their second academic year. Participants were assigned to a high reward group, a low reward group or a no reward (control) group. Overall, the passing rate and the numbers of collected credit point are not significantly different across the three groups. The same is true for the reported amounts of study time. We find, however, some evidence of heterogenous treatment effects. In particular, students with high maths skills and students with higher educated fathers have higher passing rates and collect more credit points when assigned to (higher) reward groups. While reported study time for these groups is not affected by treatment status, these students claim that they have studied harder as a consequence of the rewards.

The demand and supply of work-related training: Evidence from four countries

This paper documents aspects of demand for and supply of training in Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States. The first part presents descriptive information about the initiation, financing, provision and methods of work-related training. In all four countries, firms provide financial support for training which is initiated by the worker or which is given outside the firm. This suggests that firms pay for general training. In Switzerland employees occupy a more prominent position in initiating and financing training than their counterparts in the United States and the other countries. The second part of the paper exploits information from workers who wanted to receive training but did not do so to disentangle demand and supply factors in training. Results indicate that different training levels by level of formal schooling can be attributed to worker preferences.

Evaluating the Effect of Tax Deductions on Training

Dutch employers can claim an extra tax deduction when they train employees older than age 40. This discontinuity in a firm’s training cost is exploited to identify the tax deductions effects on training participation and of training participation on wages. The results show that the training rate of workers just above age 40 is 15%–20% higher than that of workers just below age 40. This difference mainly results from the postponement of training and is not a stimulating effect of the measure. The two‐stage least squares estimate of the wage effect of training is not statistically different from zero.

Quasi-Experimental Estimates of the Effect of Class Size on Achievement in Norway

Using a comprehensive administrative database we exploit independent quasi-experimental methods to estimate the effect of class size on student achievement in Norway. The first method is based on a maximum class size rule in the spirit Angrist and Lavy (1999). The second method exploits population variation as first proposed by Hoxby (2000). The results of both methods (and of variations on these methods) are very similar and cannot reject that the class size effect is equal to zero. The estimates are very precise; we can rule out effects as small as 1.5 percent of a standard deviation for a one student change in class size during three years in a row.

Explaining International Differences In Male Wage Inequality By Differences In Demand And Supply Of Skill

According to Blau and Kahn (1996) international differences in male wage inequality cannot be explained by a simple model of supply and demand for skill. We provide compelling evidence that this conclusion is due to employing an inappropriate measure of skill. Their measure is based on the strong assumption that years of schooling and years of experience are comparable across countries. This paper employs a direct skill measure obtained from an international comparative literacy test. Using this alternative measure of skill, we find that international differences in male wage inequality by skill between the US on the one hand, and Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland on the other hand, are consistent with relative differences in demand and supply of skill.

Broadband internet: An information superhighway to sex crime?

Does internet use trigger sex crime? We use unique Norwegian data on crime and internet adoption to shed light on this question. A public program with limited funding rolled out broadband access points in 2000-2008, and provides plausibly exogenous variation in internet use. Our instrumental variables and fixed effect estimates show that internet use is associated with a substantial increase in reported incidences of rape and other sex crimes. We present a theoretical framework that highlights three mechanisms for how internet use may affect reported sex crime, namely a reporting effect, a matching effect on potential offenders and victims, and a direct effect on crime propensity. Our results indicate that the direct effect is non-negligible and positive, plausibly as a result of increased consumption of pornography.

Incentives Versus Sorting in Tournaments: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Existing field evidence on rank-order tournaments typically does not allow disentangling incentive and sorting effects. We conduct a field experiment illustrating the confounding effect. Students in an introductory microeconomics course selected themselves into tournaments with low, medium, or high prizes for the best score at the final exam. Nonexperimental analysis of the results would suggest that higher rewards induce higher productivity, but a comparison between treatment and control groups reveals that there is no such effect. This stresses the importance of nonrandom sorting into tournaments.

An Experimental Comparison of Reliance Levels under Alternative Breach Remedies

Breach remedies serve an important role in protecting relationship-specific investments. Theory predicts that some common remedies protect too well and induce overinvestment, either though complete insurance against potential separation or the possibility that breach is prevented by increasing the damage payment due through the investment made. In this article we report on an experiment designed to address whether these two motives show up in practice. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that overinvestment does not occur under liquidated damages. In the case of expectation damages, the full-insurance motive indeed appears to be operative. In the case of reliance damages, both motives are at work, as predicted. Copyright 2003 by the RAND Corporation.

Classroom Grade Composition and Pupil Achievement

This paper exploits discontinuous grade mixing rules in Norwegian junior high schools to estimate how classroom grade composition affects pupil achievement. Pupils in mixed grade classrooms are found to outperform pupils in single grade classrooms on high stake central exit tests and teacher set and graded tests. This effect is driven by pupils benefiting from sharing the classroom with more mature peers from higher grades. The presence of lower grade peers is detrimental for achievement. Pupils can therefore benefit from de-tracking by grade, but the effects depend crucially on how the classroom is balanced in terms of lower and higher grades. These results reconcile the contradictory findings in the literature.