Firm-Level Social Returns to Education

Arbeitspapier

Do workers benefit from the education of their co-workers? This question is examined first by introducing a model of on-the-job schooling, which argues that educated workers may transfer part of their general skills to uneducated workers and that this spillover is affected by the degrees of non-excludability, irreversibility and generality of those skills. We then conduct an empirical analysis drawing on a matched panel of Portuguese firms and their workers. Schooling endogeneity is tackled by considering firm fixed effects and instruments based on schooling lags and the lagged share of retirement-age workers. We find evidence of large firm-level social returns (ranging between 14% and 23% – and thus exceeding standard estimates of private returns) and of significant returns accruing to less educated workers but not to their more educated colleagues.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 1382

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Education and Research Institutions: General ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
• Subject: education ; spillovers ; matched employer-employee data ; wages ; endogenous growth ; Betriebliche Bildungsarbeit ; Spillover-Effekt ; Bildungsertrag ; Schätzung ; Portugal ; rent sharing

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Martins, Pedro Silva
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2004

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20678
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET