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Assessing education's contribution to productivity using firm-level evidence

Author

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  • Lara LEBEDINSKI

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

  • Vincent VANDENBERGHE

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

Abstract
There is plenty of individual-level evidence, based on the estimation of Mincerian equations, showing that better-educated individuals earn more. This is usually interpreted as a proof that education raises labour productivity. Some macroeconomists, analysing cross-country time series, also support the idea that the continuous expansion of education has contributed positively to growth. Surprisingly, most economists with an interest in human capital have neglected the level of the firm to study the education-productivity-wage nexus. And the few published works considering firm-level evidence are lacking a proper strategy to cope with the endogeneity problem inherent to the estimation of production and wage functions. This paper taps into a rich, firm-level, Belgian panel database that contains information on productivity, labour cost and the workforce’s educational attainment. It aims at providing estimates of the causal effect of education on productivity and wage/labour costs. Therefore, it exclusively resorts to within firm changes to deal with time-invariant heterogeneity bias. What is more, it addresses the risk of simultaneity bias (endogeneity of firms’ education-mix choices in the short run) using the structural approach suggested by Ackerberg, Caves & Frazer (2006), alongside more traditional system-generalized method of moments (GMM) methods (Blundell & Bond, 1998) where lagged values of labour inputs are used as instruments. Results suggest that human capital, in particular larger shares of university-educated workers inside firms, translate into significantly higher firm-level labour productivity, and that labour costs are relatively well aligned on education-driven labour productivity differences. In other words, we find evidence that the Mincerian relationship between education and individual wages is driven by a strong positive link between education and firm-level productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Lara LEBEDINSKI & Vincent VANDENBERGHE, 2013. "Assessing education's contribution to productivity using firm-level evidence," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2013017, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvir:2013017
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. V. Vandenberghe, 2017. "The productivity challenge. What to expect from better-quality labour and capital inputs?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(40), pages 4013-4025, August.
    3. Moraes, Ricardo Kalil & Wanke, Peter Fernandes & Faria, João Ricardo, 2021. "Unveiling the endogeneity between social-welfare and labor efficiency: Two-stage NDEA neural network approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. Fernando Cárdenas Echeverri & Andres García-Suaza & Juan Esteban Garzon Restrepo, 2023. "Revisiting the relationship between firm strategic capabilities and productivity in a multilevel analysis: Do labor market conditions matter?," Documentos de Trabajo 20641, Universidad del Rosario.
    5. Rycx, François & Saks, Yves & Tojerow, Ilan, 2016. "Misalignment of Productivity and Wages across Regions? Evidence from Belgian Matched Panel Data," IZA Discussion Papers 10336, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Valentine Jacobs & Kevin Pineda-Hernández & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2023. "Does over-education raise productivity and wages equally? The moderating role of workers’ origin and immigrants’ background," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 698-724, November.
    7. François Rycx & Yves Saks & Ilan Tojerow, 2015. "Does Education Raise Productivity and Wages Equally? The Moderating Roles of Age, Gender and Industry," Working Paper Research 281, National Bank of Belgium.
    8. V. Vandenberghe, 2018. "The Contribution of Educated Workers to Firms’ Efficiency Gains: The Key Role of Proximity to the ‘Local’ Frontier," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 259-283, September.
    9. Adamu Jibir & Musa Abdu & Abdullahi Buba, 2023. "Does Human Capital Influence Labor Productivity? Evidence from Nigerian Manufacturing and Service Firms," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 14(2), pages 805-830, June.
    10. Abdul Azeez Oluwanisola Abdul Wahab, 2017. "Modeling the Effect of Healthcare Expenditure and Education Expenditure on Labour Productivity: A Study on OIC Countries," GATR Journals jber134, Global Academy of Training and Research (GATR) Enterprise.
    11. Vincent Vandenberghe, 2017. "The Contribution of Educated Workers to Firms' Efficiency Gains The Key Role of the Proximity to Frontier," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2017012, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    12. Vincent Vandenberghe, 2020. "Ageing Calls for Shorter Full-Time Tertiary Education and Increased Continuing Education," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2020001, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    13. Yuxin Li & Derek Bosworth, 2020. "R&D spillovers in a supply chain and productivity performance in British firms," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 177-204, February.
    14. Ibrahim Mike Okumu & Joseph Mawejje, 2020. "Labour productivity in African manufacturing: Does the level of skills development matter?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 38(4), pages 441-464, July.
    15. Sabien Dobbelaere & Mark Vancauteren, 2014. "Market imperfections, skills and total factor productivity : Firm-level evidence on Belgium and the Netherlands," Working Paper Research 267, National Bank of Belgium.
    16. Salem Gheit, 2022. "A Stochastic Frontier Analysis of the Human Capital Effects on the Manufacturing Industries’ Technical Efficiency in the United States," Athens Journal of Business & Economics, Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), vol. 8(3), pages 215-238, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; Human capital; Firm-Level Productivity and Labour Cost; Cobb-Douglas; CES; imperfect substitutability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation

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