 Stay in school or start working? — The human capital investment decision under uncertainty and irreversibilityN. Bilkic, Thomas Gries and M. Pilichowski Labour Economics, 2012, vol. 19, issue 5, 706-717 Abstract: At any moment a student may decide to leave school and enter the labor market, or to stay in the education system. The timing of their departure determines their level of academic achievement and formal qualification. Education is a multi-stage process of investing in an accumulative human capital stock. How long can I expect to go to school? How much will I invest in my education? To answer these questions we apply the real option approach. We depart from recent literature by (1) adding accumulated education costs and determining the expected time of market entry, (2) considering complete earnings profiles including entry-level wages, sheepskin effects and earning dynamics, and (3) discussing the option value of schooling while introducing potential career opportunities or threats of unemployment modeled as major uncertain events connected with particular formal education achievements. Keywords: Human capital theory; Uncertainty; Sheepskin effect; Irreversibility; Large stochastic shocks (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:19:y:2012:i:5:p:706-717 DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2012.04.005 Access Statistics for this article Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier |
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