Suchergebnisse

Most OECD countries experience high unemployment rates and declining growth in higher educational attainment. An often suggested government policy is therefore to allocate resources towards formal schooling for adults. However, returns on such investments are uncertain and the foregone earnings are potentially large. We use Swedish population register data from 1982 to 2011 to estimate average long run earnings returns on higher education for 29- to 55-year-olds who enrolled 1992-1993. We find substantial positive estimates, but these only fully emerge after approximately ten years. Nevertheless, calculations indicate that the benefits for society exceed the costs also under fairly pessimistic assumptions.

Most OECD countries experience high unemployment rates and declining growth in higher educational attainment. An often suggested government policy is therefore to allocate resources towards formal schooling for adults. However, returns on such investments are uncertain and the foregone earnings are potentially large. We use Swedish population register data from 1982 to 2011 to estimate average long run earnings returns on higher education for 29- to 55-year-olds who enrolled 1992-1993. We find substantial positive estimates, but these only fully emerge after approximately ten years. Nevertheless, calculations indicate that the benefits for society exceed the costs also under fairly pessimistic assumptions.

Regional convergence studies have relied on net migration data in assessing the impact of migration. With heterogeneous labour, the implied symmetrical treatment of immigration and emigration cannot be justified a priori. Because of heterogeneity among migrants, gross migration flows may lead to considerable interregional redistribution of human capital even when net migration is zero. Moreover, the effects of regional economic conditions on gross in- and out-migration flows may not be symmetric. In this comparative study of regional growth and migration, the net and the gross migration approaches are compared. The results confirm ex post that the net approach cannot be justified and, despite Sweden and Norway being similar in many ways, migration has very different effects on convergence in these two countries.