Labour Market Effects of the Polytechnic Education Reform: The Finnish Experience

Petri Böckerman (), Ulla Hämäläinen and Roope Uusitalo
Additional contact information
Ulla Hämäläinen: Ministry of Finance, Finland

No 4013, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper evaluates the labour market effects of the introduction of the polytechnic education system in Finland. The polytechnic reform gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics. Since the timing of the reform differed across schools, we can compare the performance of polytechnic graduates to the performance of vocational college graduates controlling for both the year and the school effects. The results are somewhat sensitive to how the selectivity issues are treated but generally suggest that both the earnings and the employment levels of post-reform graduates are higher in the field of business and administration. The effects are much smaller and usually insignificant in other fields.

Keywords: school reform; polytechnic education; vocational education; return to education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2009-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Published - published in: Economics of Education Review, 2009, 28 (6), 672-681

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Related works:
Journal Article: Labour market effects of the polytechnic education reform: The Finnish experience (2009)
Working Paper: Labour Market Effects of Polytechnic Education Reform: The Finnish Experience (2007)
Working Paper: Labour Market Effects of Polytechnic Education Reform: The Finnish Experience (2007)
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