IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpd/pd2002/a2-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Matching, Screening and Firm Investment in General Training: Theory and Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Clark, Damon

    (Nuffield College, Oxford)

Abstract

When job matching is important, we show that firms will pay for general training under very weak conditions. The key ingredient in our model is the idea that it is more costly to screen skilled workers than it is to screen unskilled ones. In equilibrium, this 'softens' competition for trained workers, allowing firms to recoup training investments. We apply our model to a classic case of firm investment in general training - German Apprenticeship Training - and show that a key prediction of our model that is not shared by other models is strongly supported in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Clark, Damon, 2002. "Matching, Screening and Firm Investment in General Training: Theory and Evidence," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 A2-4, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpd:pd2002:a2-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econpapers.repec.org/cpd/2002/112_Damon.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Dietmar Harhoff & Thomas J. Kane, 1993. "Financing Apprenticeship Training: Evidence from Germany," NBER Working Papers 4557, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Wagner, Karin, 1998. "The German apprenticeship system after unification," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economic Change and Employment FS I 98-301, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1982. "Limit Pricing and Entry under Incomplete Information: An Equilibrium Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 443-459, March.
    5. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. David H. Autor, 2001. "Why Do Temporary Help Firms Provide Free General Skills Training?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1409-1448.
    7. McAfee, R. Preston & McMillan, John, 1987. "Auctions with entry," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 343-347.
    8. Scoones, David, 2000. "Matching and competition for human capital," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 135-152, March.
    9. Euwals, Rob & Winkelmann, Rainer, 2001. "Why Do Firms Train? Empirical Evidence on the First Labour Market Outcomes of Graduated Apprentices," IZA Discussion Papers 319, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Robert H. Topel & Michael P. Ward, 1992. "Job Mobility and the Careers of Young Men," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 439-479.
    11. Werwatz, A., 1996. "How firm-specific is German apprenticeship training?," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 1996,12, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    12. Chang, Chun & Wang, Yijiang, 1996. "Human Capital Investment under Asymmetric Information: The Pigovian Conjecture Revisited," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 505-519, July.
    13. David Soskice, 1994. "Reconciling Markets and Institutions: The German Apprenticeship System," NBER Chapters, in: Training and the Private Sector: International Comparisons, pages 25-60, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Steven A. Matthews, 1995. "A Technical Primer on Auction Theory I: Independent Private Values," Discussion Papers 1096, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    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. Schweri, Juerg & Mueller, Barbara, 2007. "Why has the share of training firms declined in Switzerland?," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 40(2/3), pages 149-167.
    2. Schweri, Juerg & Mueller, Barbara, 2007. "Why has the share of training firms declined in Switzerland?," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 40(2/3), pages 149-167.
    3. Schweri, Jürg & Mueller, Barbara, 2007. "Why has the share of training firms declined in Switzerland?," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 40(2/3), pages 149-167.

    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. Clark, Damon & Fahr, René, 2001. "The Promise of Workplace Training for Non-College-Bound Youth: Theory and Evidence from German Apprenticeship," IZA Discussion Papers 378, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Jung-Seung Yang, 2022. "Dynamics of Firm’s Investment in Education and Training: An Agent-based Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 60(4), pages 1317-1351, December.
    3. Sevilir, Merih, 2010. "Human capital investment, new firm creation and venture capital," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 483-508, October.
    4. Malcomson, James M. & Maw, James W. & McCormick, Barry, 2003. "General training by firms, apprentice contracts, and public policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 197-227, April.
    5. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Michael Waldman, 2012. "Theory and Evidence in Internal LaborMarkets [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    7. Dietz, Daniel & Zwick, Thomas, 2016. "The retention effect of training: Portability, visibility, and credibility," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-011, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Rao, Neel, 2015. "General training in labor markets: Common value auctions with unobservable investment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 19-45.
    9. Picchio, Matteo & van Ours, Jan C., 2011. "Market imperfections and firm-sponsored training," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 712-722, October.
    10. Dorner, Matthias & Görlitz, Katja, 2020. "Training, wages and a missing school graduation cohort," IAB-Discussion Paper 202028, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    11. Filipe Almeida‐Santos & Karen A. Mumford, 2004. "Employee Training in Australia: Evidence from AWIRS," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 80(s1), pages 53-64, September.
    12. Xin Jin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Not Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 0314, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    13. Malcomson, James M. & Maw, James W. & McCormick, Barry, 2000. "General training by firms, apprentice contracts, and public policy," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0021, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    14. Vilhuber, Lars, 2001. "La spécificité de la formation en milieu de travail : un survol des contributions théoriques et empiriques récentes," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 77(1), pages 133-167, mars.
    15. Lars Vilhuber, 1999. "Sector-Specific Training and Mobility in Germany," CIRANO Working Papers 99s-03, CIRANO.
    16. Colleen Flaherty Manchester, 2012. "General Human Capital and Employee Mobility: How Tuition Reimbursement Increases Retention through Sorting and Participation," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(4), pages 951-974, October.
    17. Edwin Leuven, 2005. "The Economics of Private Sector Training: A Survey of the Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 91-111, February.
    18. Korpi, Tomas & Mertens, Antje, 2002. "Training systems and labor mobility: A comparison between Germany and Sweden," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 2002,19, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    19. Kameshwari Shankar & Suman Ghosh, 2005. "Favorable Selection in the Labor Market: A Theory of Worker Mobility in R&D Intensive Industries," Working Papers 05006, Department of Economics, College of Business, Florida Atlantic University.
    20. Thomas J. Carter, 2021. "Delayed firm‐paid general training," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(3), pages 937-951, January.
    21. Jin, Xin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Note Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," MPRA Paper 58484, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    General Training; Human Capital; Auctions; Wages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:cpd:pd2002:a2-4. 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: Sune Karlsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.