Skill transferability, regret and mobility
Lex Borghans and
Bart Golsteyn ()
Applied Economics, 2007, vol. 39, issue 13, 1663-1677
Abstract:
After graduation many students start working in sectors not related to their field of study or participate in training targeted at work in other sectors. In this article, we look at mobility immediately after graduation from the perspective that educational choices have been made when these pupils had little experience of the actual working life in these professions. We develop a model where students accumulate partially transferable human capital but also learn about their professional preferences at the university and during the first years in the labour market. As a consequence of this newly acquired insight, these young workers might realize that working in another occupational field would better fit their preferences, although they are better equipped to work in their own field. The empirical analysis reveals that if wages are 1% lower due to lower skill transferability, the probability that a graduate who regrets his choice actually switches decreases by 1.4 percentage points, while those who switch on average take 0.3 months additional education.
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840600675661 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
Related works:
Working Paper: Skill Transferability, Regret and Mobility (2006) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:39:y:2007:i:13:p:1663-1677
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20
DOI: 10.1080/00036840600675661
Access Statistics for this article
Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips
More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().