 Should the government stimulate enrolment in science and engineering studies?Joëlle Noailly, Dinand Webbink and Bas Jacobs Applied Economics Letters, 2011, vol. 18, issue 4, 371-375 Abstract: In many countries there is a deep concern about shortages of Science and Engineering workers (S&E). This article focuses on the effectiveness of policies aimed at stimulating the supply of S&E workers in the Netherlands. Despite the 'common wisdom' of severe and increasing shortages, we do not find evidence for a tight labour market of S&E workers. Instead, the data suggest that S&E workers have become less scarce since 1996. Stimulating enrolment in S&E studies may not be an effective policy for increasing R&D activity in the Netherlands because the majority of Dutch S&E freshmen do not end up working in R&D. They drop out during their S&E study or choose other jobs. In addition, the internationalization of the market for S&E workers tends to counter the effects of supply-side policies because the growing supply of foreign S&E graduates puts downward pressure on wages. As a result, demand-side policies may be more effective because they are directly targeted at fostering R&D. Date: 2011 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:18:y:2011:i:4:p:371-375 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/13504851003652385 Access Statistics for this article Applied Economics Letters is currently edited by Anita Phillips More articles in Applied Economics Letters from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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