Risks and returns to educational fields – A financial asset approach to vocational and academic education

Daniela Glocker and Johanna Storck ()

Economics of Education Review, 2014, vol. 42, issue C, 109-129

Abstract: Applying a financial assets approach, we analyze the returns and earnings risk of investments into different types of human capital. Even though the returns from investing in human capital are extensively studied, little is known about the properties of the returns to different types of human capital within a given educational path. Using information from the German Micro Census, we estimate the risk and returns to 75 fields of education, differentiating between vocational and academic education. We identify fields of education that are efficient investment goods, i.e. high returns at a given level of risk, and fields that are chosen for other (non-monetary) reasons. Furthermore, we rank fields of education by their return per unit of risk and find that university education is not always superior to other types of education.

Keywords: Educational choice; Human capital investment; Returns to schooling; Mean–variance analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Risks and Returns to Educational Fields: A Financial Asset Approach to Vocational and Academic Education (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:42:y:2014:i:c:p:109-129

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2014.06.004

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