[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/har/wpaper/0807.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

General Education vs. Vocational Training: Evidence from an Economy in Transition

Author

Listed:
  • Ofer Malamud
  • Cristian Pop-Eleches
Abstract
This paper examines the relative benefits of general education and vocational training in Romania, a country which experienced major technological and institutional change during its transition from Communism to a market economy. To avoid the bias caused by non-random selection, we exploit a 1973 educational reform which shifted a large proportion of students from vocational training to general education while keeping average years of schooling unchanged. Using data from the 1992 and 2002 Romanian Censuses and household surveys from 1995-2000, we analyze the effect of this policy with a regression discontinuity design. We found that men in cohorts affected by the policy were significantly less likely to work in manual or craft-related occupations than their counterparts who were unaffected by the policy. However, in contrast to cross-sectional findings, we found no difference in labor market participation or earnings between cohorts affected and unaffected by the policy. We therefore conclude that differences in labor market returns between graduates of vocational and general schools are largely driven by selection.

Suggested Citation

  • Ofer Malamud & Cristian Pop-Eleches, 2008. "General Education vs. Vocational Training: Evidence from an Economy in Transition," Working Papers 0807, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:har:wpaper:0807
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/about/publications/working-papers/pdf/wp_08_07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 1998. "Why Do Firms Train? Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 79-119.
    2. David Card & Carlos Dobkin & Nicole Maestas, 2004. "The Impact of Nearly Universal Insurance Coverage on Health Care Utilization and Health Evidence from Medicare," Working Papers WR-197, RAND Corporation.
    3. Daniel Münich & Jan Svejnar & Katherine Terrell, 2005. "Returns to Human Capital Under The Communist Wage Grid and During the Transition to a Market Economy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 100-123, February.
    4. Michael Lechner, 2000. "An Evaluation of Public-Sector-Sponsored Continuous Vocational Training Programs in East Germany," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(2), pages 347-375.
    5. Voicu, Alexandru, 2005. "Employment dynamics in the Romanian labor market. A Markov chain Monte Carlo approach," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 604-639, September.
    6. Acemoglu, Daron & Pischke, Jorn-Steffen, 1999. "Beyond Becker: Training in Imperfect Labour Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(453), pages 112-142, February.
    7. Dirk Krueger & Krishna B. Kumar, 2004. "Skill-Specific rather than General Education: A Reason for US--Europe Growth Differences?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 167-207, June.
    8. Brainerd, Elizabeth, 1998. "Winners and Losers in Russia's Economic Transition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1094-1116, December.
    9. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    10. Krueger, Dirk & Kumar, Krishna B., 2004. "US-Europe differences in technology-driven growth: quantifying the role of education," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 161-190, January.
    11. John DiNardo & David S. Lee, 2004. "Economic Impacts of Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984-2001," NBER Working Papers 10598, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Costas Meghir & Mårten Palme, 2005. "Educational Reform, Ability, and Family Background," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 414-424, March.
    13. David Card & Carlos Dobkin & Nicole Maestas, 2004. "The Impact of Nearly Universal Insurance Coverage on Health Care Utilization and Health: Evidence from Medicare," NBER Working Papers 10365, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Barberis, Nicholas & Maxim Boycko & Andrei Shleifer & Natalia Tsukanova, 1996. "How Does Privatization Work? Evidence from the Russian Shops," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 764-790, August.
    15. Catalin Pauna & John S. Earle, 1998. "Long-term unemployment, social assistance and labor market policies in Romania," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1/2), pages 203-235.
    16. John DiNardo & David S. Lee, 2004. "Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984–2001," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1383-1441.
    17. David S. Lee & Justin McCrary, 2005. "Crime, Punishment, and Myopia," NBER Working Papers 11491, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Earle, John S. & Pauna, Catalin, 1996. "Incidence and duration of unemployment in Romania," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 829-837, April.
    19. Neuman, Shoshana & Ziderman, Adrian, 1991. "Vocational schooling, occupational matching, and labor market earnings in Israel," Policy Research Working Paper Series 683, The World Bank.
    20. Shoshana Neuman & Adrian Ziderman, 1999. "Vocational Education in Israel: Wage Effects of the VocEd-Occupation Match," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(2), pages 407-420.
    21. Lee, David S. & Card, David, 2008. "Regression discontinuity inference with specification error," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 655-674, February.
    22. Goldin, Claudia, 2001. "The Human-Capital Century And American Leadership: Virtues Of The Past," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(2), pages 263-292, June.
    23. John S. Earle, 1997. "Industrial Decline and Labor Reallocation in Romania," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 118, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    24. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    25. Paul Bennell, 1996. "General versus vocational secondary education in developing countries: A review of the rates of return evidence," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 230-247.
    26. Shoshana Neuman & Adrian Ziderman, 1991. "Vocational Schooling, Occupational Matching, and Labor Market Earnings in Israel," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(2), pages 256-281.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Malamud, Ofer & Pop-Eleches, Cristian, 2011. "School tracking and access to higher education among disadvantaged groups," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1538-1549.
    2. Prashant Loyalka & Xiaoting Huang & Linxiu Zhang & Jianguo Wei & Hongmei Yi & Yingquan Song & Yaojiang Shi & James Chu, 2016. "The Impact of Vocational Schooling on Human Capital Development in Developing Countries: Evidence from China," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(1), pages 143-170.
    3. Driouchi, Ahmed & Harkat, Tahar, 2016. "Macroeconomic and School Variables to Reveal Country Choices of General and Vocational Education: A Cross-Country Analysis with focus on Arab Economies," MPRA Paper 73455, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Eggenberger, Christian & Rinawi, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2018. "Occupational specificity: A new measurement based on training curricula and its effect on labor market outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 97-107.
    5. World Bank, 2010. "Education, Training and Labor Market Outcomes for Youth in Indonesia," World Bank Publications - Reports 2914, The World Bank Group.
    6. Andrén, Daniela, 2012. "Romanians, Hungarians and their wages, in transition, in Romania," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 2673-2685.
    7. Andrén, Daniela, 2010. ""In every rank, or great or small, ’Tis industry supports us all": Romanians and ethnic Hungarians, and their wages, in transition," Working Papers 2010:1, Örebro University, School of Business.
    8. Harkat, Tahar & Driouchi, Ahmed & Achehboune, Amale, 2016. "Time Series Analysis & Choices for General and Vocational Education in Arab Economies," MPRA Paper 74770, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Julia Bock-Schappelwein & Jürgen Janger & Andreas Reinstaller, 2012. "Bildung 2025 – Die Rolle von Bildung in der österreichischen Wirtschaft," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 45200.
    10. Danilovich, Hanna & Croucher, Richard, 2015. "Investment in personnel and FDI in Belarusian companies," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 966-971.
    11. David Newhouse & Daniel Suryadarma, 2011. "The Value of Vocational Education: High School Type and Labor Market Outcomes in Indonesia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 25(2), pages 296-322, May.
    12. Karina Mahirda & Heni Wahyuni, 2016. "Returning To General And Vocational High-Schools In Indonesia," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 18, pages 9-28, December.
    13. Parey, Matthias, 2016. "Vocational Schooling versus Apprenticeship Training. Evidence from Vacancy Data," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145655, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Harry Holzer, 2012. "Good workers for good jobs: improving education and workforce systems in the US," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-19, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    2. Huzeyfe Torun & Semih Tumen, 2019. "Do vocational high school graduates have better employment outcomes than general high school graduates?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(8), pages 1364-1388, August.
    3. Cörvers, F. & Heijke, J.A.M. & Kriechel, B. & Pfeifer, H., 2011. "High and steady or low and rising? : life cycle earnings patterns in vocational and general education," Research Memorandum 042, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    4. Greenstone, Michael & Gayer, Ted, 2009. "Quasi-experimental and experimental approaches to environmental economics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 21-44, January.
    5. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bender, Stefan & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2012. "Evaluating the labor-market effects of compulsory military service," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 814-829.
    6. Marco Manacorda, 2012. "The Cost of Grade Retention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 596-606, May.
    7. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    8. Mauricio Villamizar‐Villegas & Freddy A. Pinzon‐Puerto & Maria Alejandra Ruiz‐Sanchez, 2022. "A comprehensive history of regression discontinuity designs: An empirical survey of the last 60 years," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1130-1178, September.
    9. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    10. Malamud, Ofer & Pop-Eleches, Cristian, 2011. "School tracking and access to higher education among disadvantaged groups," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1538-1549.
    11. Jane K. Dokko, 2008. "The effect of taxation on lifecycle labor supply: results from a quasi-experiment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Frandsen, Brigham R. & Frölich, Markus & Melly, Blaise, 2012. "Quantile treatment effects in the regression discontinuity design," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 168(2), pages 382-395.
    13. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Sanz-de-Galdeano, Anna, 2020. "The impact of health insurance on stockholding: A regression discontinuity approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    14. Mona Said & Fatma El-Hamidi, 2008. "Taking Technical Education Seriously in MENA: Determinants, Labor Market Implications and Policy Lessons," Working Papers 450, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 Jan 2008.
    15. Eric A. Hanushek & Guido Schwerdt & Ludger Woessmann & Lei Zhang, 2017. "General Education, Vocational Education, and Labor-Market Outcomes over the Lifecycle," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 48-87.
    16. Werner Eichhorst & Núria Rodríguez-Planas & Ricarda Schmidl & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2015. "A Road Map to Vocational Education and Training in Industrialized Countries," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(2), pages 314-337, March.
    17. Pedro Carneiro & Rita Ginja, 2014. "Long-Term Impacts of Compensatory Preschool on Health and Behavior: Evidence from Head Start," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 135-173, November.
    18. Julia Bock-Schappelwein & Jürgen Janger & Andreas Reinstaller, 2012. "Bildung 2025 – Die Rolle von Bildung in der österreichischen Wirtschaft," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 45200.
    19. repec:sip:wpaper:11-003 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Andren, Daniela & Earle, John S. & Sapatoru, Dana, 2005. "The wage effects of schooling under socialism and in transition: Evidence from Romania, 1950-2000," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 300-323, June.
    21. Fatma El-Hamidi, 2006. "General or Vocational Schooling? Evidence on School Choice, Returns, and 'Sheepskin' Effects from Egypt 1998," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 157-176.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Romania; vocational training; general education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • P20 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:har:wpaper:0807. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Eleanor Cartelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/spuchus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.