Maite Blázquez

Overeducation dynamics and personality

In this paper, we use the 2000–2008 waves of the German Socioeconomic Panel to examine overeducation transitions. The results are based on a first-order Markov model that allows us to account for both the initial conditions problem and potential endogeneity in attrition. We found that overeducation dynamics, especially the probability of entering overeducation, is significantly influenced by personality. Notwithstanding these differences associated with individual heterogeneity, there still appears to be considerable overeducation persistence. Almost 18% of the overeducation risk is due to individual state dependence, that is, the fact of having been overeducated in the previous year.

Commuting Times: Is There Any Penalty for Immigrants?

The assimilation of immigrants and their impact on the labour market of the host country have become a growing subject of study in recent literature. This is a topic of particular interest in countries like Spain, where immigration has become one of the main challenges of government policy in recent years. The Madrid region has experienced one of the highest increases in the number of foreign residents between 1996 and 2007. The intensity of this inflow in such a short period of time has led to restrictions on the ability of the residential and labour market to absorb all these newcomers, limiting their choice set of available dwellings and jobs. In this paper the spatial mismatch hypothesis for the Madrid region is tested by exploring the relationship between immigrants’ residential location and employment accessibility as measured by commuting times. The findings reveal that immigrants from eastern Europe, Africa, Ecuador and Colombia are significantly more likely to experience higher commuting times when compared with natives. These differences in commuting times can be attributed to different preferences regarding dwelling and employment optimal decisions. However, they could also be seen as symptoms of residential segregation and the difficulties in employment accessibility experienced by immigrant groups.

Over-Education in Multilingual Economies: Evidence from Catalonia

Catalonia’s economy is characterized by linguistic diversity and provides a unique opportunity to measure the incidence of language proficiency on over-education, particularly, whether individuals with deficient language skills tend to acquire more formal skills or, on the contrary, become discouraged to attend school. Descriptive evidence suggests the latter, that individuals with better language knowledge are more likely to be over-educated. However, estimating a model that controls for individuals’ socio-demographic characteristics reveals the opposite: better language knowledge decreases over-education. This effect, although robust to accounting for endogeneity of language knowledge and significant at the individual level, is mostly non-significant on average.

Políticas de empleo y sus efectos: el caso de la formación dirigida a desempleados

El articulo analiza como afecta al empleo y al ajuste ocupacional de los individuos registrados en las oficinas de empleo el hecho de participar en cursos de formacion. Para ello se elaboran distintos indicadores y se estiman las probabilidades de emparejamiento entre oferta y demanda laboral. Los datos utilizados proceden de los registros administrativos del Servicio Regional de Empleo de la Comunidad de Madrid referidos al periodo 2006-2009. Los resultados senalan que, por un lado y aun controlando por el sesgo de seleccion que registran los participantes en acciones de formacion, tal participacion eleva la probabilidad de empleo en terminos significativos respecto a la alcanzada por los individuos que no se han beneficiado de acciones de este tipo. Los resultados indican que la participacion en un curso de formacion no solo incrementa la probabilidad de empleo, sino que tambien eleva la probabilidad de que dicho empleo se ajuste en mayor medida a las profesiones demandadas por los individuos, lo que implica que la participacion en cursos permite acercar de una manera mas adecuada la demanda de empleo de aquellos a las vacantes existentes en el mercado laboral.