IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4861.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Training Subsidies and the Wage Returns to Continuing Vocational Training: Evidence from Italian Regions

Author

Listed:
  • Brunello, Giorgio

    (University of Padova)

  • Comi, Simona Lorena

    (University of Milano-Bicocca)

  • Sonedda, Daniela

    (University of Insubria)

Abstract

We use the variation of training policy over time and across Italian regions to identify the relationship between individual training and earnings. Using longitudinal data for the period 1999 to 2005, we find that the marginal effect of one additional week of formal training on monthly earnings is 4.4 percent. This effect declines rapidly over time and is equal to 0.86 percent 10 years after the investment. We also find that marginal returns are higher among small firms, which are more likely to be constrained by lack of economic resources in their training decisions. Since small firms train less than large firms, their higher returns from the training induced by training policies can simply reflect decreasing marginal returns to training.

Suggested Citation

  • Brunello, Giorgio & Comi, Simona Lorena & Sonedda, Daniela, 2010. "Training Subsidies and the Wage Returns to Continuing Vocational Training: Evidence from Italian Regions," IZA Discussion Papers 4861, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4861
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp4861.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wiji Arulampalam & Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2004. "Training in Europe," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 346-360, 04/05.
    2. Ann P. Bartel, 1992. "Training, Wage Growth and Job Performance: Evidence From a Company Database," NBER Working Papers 4027, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Van Reenen, John & Dearden, Lorraine & Reed, Howard, 2000. "Who Gains when Workers Train? Training and Corporate Productivity in a Panel of British Industries," CEPR Discussion Papers 2486, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. David S. Lee, 2005. "Training, Wages, and Sample Selection: Estimating Sharp Bounds on Treatment Effects," NBER Working Papers 11721, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Jorn-Steffen Pischke, 1999. "The Structure of Wages and Investment in General Training," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 539-572, June.
    6. Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2001. "Continuous training in Germany," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 14(3), pages 523-548.
    7. Bartel, Ann P, 1995. "Training, Wage Growth, and Job Performance: Evidence from a Company Database," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(3), pages 401-425, July.
    8. Brunello, Giorgio & Garibaldi, Pietro & Wasmer, Etienne (ed.), 2007. "Education and Training in Europe," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199210978.
    9. Giorgio Brunello & Pietro Garibaldi & Etienne Wasmer, 2007. "Education and training in Europe," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03415950, HAL.
    10. Bassanini, Andrea & Booth, Alison L. & Brunello, Giorgio & De Paola, Maria & Leuven, Edwin, 2005. "Workplace Training in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 1640, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Parent, Daniel, 1999. "Wages and Mobility: The Impact of Employer-Provided Training," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 298-317, April.
    12. Lynch, Lisa M, 1992. "Private-Sector Training and the Earnings of Young Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 299-312, March.
    13. Edwin Leuven & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2008. "An alternative approach to estimate the wage returns to private-sector training," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 423-434.
    14. Ballot, Gerard & Fakhfakh, Fathi & Taymaz, Erol, 2001. "Firms' human capital, R&D and performance: a study on French and Swedish firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 443-462, September.
    15. Booth, Alison L, 1993. "Private Sector Training and Graduate Earnings," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(1), pages 164-170, February.
    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. Paweł Strawiński & Paulina Broniatowska & Aleksandra Majchrowska, 2016. "Returns to vocational education. Evidence from Poland," Working Papers 2016-16, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    2. Görlitz, Katja & Tamm, Marcus, 2015. "The Pecuniary and Non-pecuniary Returns to Voucher-financed Training," Ruhr Economic Papers 553, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Floreani, Vincent Arthur, 2014. "Fixing Europe's youth unemployment and skills mismatch, can public financial support to SMEs be effective? The case of the European Commission and European Investment Bank joint initiatives," MPRA Paper 55849, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. repec:zbw:rwirep:0553 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jonathan Barr & Emma Clarence & Francesca Froy & Sergio Destefanis & Chris Warhurst, 2012. "Local Job Creation: How Employment and Training Agencies Can Help - The Labour Agency of the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy," OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Papers 2012/17, OECD Publishing.
    6. Katja Görlitz & Marcus Tamm, 2015. "The Pecuniary and Non-pecuniary Returns to Voucher-financed Training," Ruhr Economic Papers 0553, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.

    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. Brunello, Giorgio & Comi, Simona Lorena & Sonedda, Daniela, 2012. "Training subsidies and the wage returns to continuing vocational training," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 361-372.
    2. Jozef Konings & Stijn Vanormelingen, 2015. "The Impact of Training on Productivity and Wages: Firm-Level Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 485-497, May.
    3. Ruhose, Jens & Thomsen, Stephan L. & Weilage, Insa, 2018. "The Wider Benefits of Adult Learning: Work-Related Training and Social Capital," IZA Discussion Papers 11854, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Lorraine Dearden & Howard Reed & John Van Reenen, 2006. "The Impact of Training on Productivity and Wages: Evidence from British Panel Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(4), pages 397-421, August.
    5. Almeida, Rita & Carneiro, Pedro, 2009. "The return to firm investments in human capital," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 97-106, January.
    6. Cecilia ALBERT & Carlos GARCÍA-SERRANO & Virginia HERNANZ, 2010. "On-the-job training in Europe: Determinants and wage returns," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 149(3), pages 315-341, September.
    7. Tamm, Marcus, 2018. "Training and changes in job Tasks," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 137-147.
    8. Jens Ruhose & Stephan L. Thomsen & Insa Weilage, 2018. "The Wider Benefits of Adult Learning: Work-Related Training and Social Capital," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1004, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    9. Ruhose, Jens & Thomsen, Stephan, 2017. "Non-Monetary Benefits of Continuous Training," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168169, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Ruhose, Jens & Thomsen, Stephan L. & Weilage, Insa, 2019. "The benefits of adult learning: Work-related training, social capital, and earnings," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 166-186.
    11. Didier Fouarge & Trudie Schils & Andries de Grip, 2013. "Why do low-educated workers invest less in further training?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(18), pages 2587-2601, June.
    12. Henrik Hansen & S. Kanay De & John Rand & Neda Trifković, 2023. "Wage returns to workplace training in Myanmar," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 41(2), March.
    13. Oliver Cassagneau-Francis & Robert Gary-Bobo & Julie Pernaudet & Jean-Marc Robin, 2022. "A Nonparametric Finite Mixture Approach to Difference-in-Difference Estimation, with an Application to On-the-job Training and Wages," Working Papers hal-03869547, HAL.
    14. Anna Ruzik-Sierdzinska & Claudia Villosio & Michele Belloni & Maciej Lis & Monika Potoczna, 2013. "Age and productivity. Human Capital Accumulation and Depreciation," CASE Network Reports 0114, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    15. Julia Lang, 2012. "The Aims of Lifelong Learning: Age-Related Effects of Training on Wages and Job Security," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 478, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    16. Addison, John T. & Belfield, Clive R., 2007. "Unions, training and firm performance," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 40(4), pages 361-381.
    17. Katja Görlitz, 2010. "Continuous Training and Wages – An Empirical Analysis Using a Comparison-group Approach," Ruhr Economic Papers 0197, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    18. Floreani, Vincent Arthur, 2014. "Fixing Europe's youth unemployment and skills mismatch, can public financial support to SMEs be effective? The case of the European Commission and European Investment Bank joint initiatives," MPRA Paper 55849, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. repec:zbw:rwirep:0197 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Görlitz, Katja, 2011. "Continuous training and wages: An empirical analysis using a comparison-group approach," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 691-701, August.
    21. Lang, Julia, 2012. "The aims of lifelong learning: Age-related effects of training on wages and job security," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62073, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    training; training policies; Italy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:iza:izadps:dp4861. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.