Do Digital Skill Certificates Help New Workers Enter the Market? Evidence from an Online Labour Platform

Otto Kässi and Vili Lehdonvirta

No 7810, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We study the effects of a voluntary skill certification scheme in an online freelancing labour market. We show that obtaining skill certificates increases freelancers’ earnings. This effect is not driven by increased freelancer productivity but by decreased employer uncertainty. The increase in freelancer earnings is mostly realised through an increase in the value of the projects won rather than an increase in the number of projects won. Moreover, we find evidence for negative selection to completing skill certificates, which suggests that the freelancers who complete more skill certificates are in a more disadvantaged position in the labour market.

Keywords: signaling; human capital; skill validation; skill certificates; micro-credentials; online freelancing; platforms; gig economy; computer-based assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J21 J23 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7810.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Do digital skill certificates help new workers enter the market?: Evidence from an online labour platform (2019)
Working Paper: Do Digital Skill Certificates Help New Workers Enter the Market? Evidence from an Online Labour Platform (2018)
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:ces:ceswps:_7810

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe (wohlrabe@ifo.de).