Sheepskin Effects in the Returns to Education: Accounting for Enrolment and Completion Effects

Nicolas Hérault and Rezida Zakirova

Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

Abstract: This paper contributes to the literature by separately analysing the signalling (or sheepskin) effects of the enrolment in and the completion of vocational education and training as well as higher education. Moreover, we investigate the persistence of these sheepskin effects over time. We take advantage of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, which contains comprehensive information about completed and uncompleted courses and subsequent labour market outcomes. We find that signalling effects form a substantial part of the total return to education but that they vary by type of course. In addition, we show that both course attendance and course completion contribute to the overall signalling effects.

Keywords: Return to education; signalling effects; post-secondary education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2011-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n04

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