Published in:
Nordic Economic Policy Review, 1, 2014.
Abstract:
We study the effect of entering the labor market in good times as opposed to bad times: to what degree may education dampen short- and long-term negative labor market effects of finishing school in a recession? We focus on vocational training, which has been underdeveloped in many countries with high youth unemployment, but also assess the outcomes for those without a completed high school degree, those with only an academic high school degree and those with a college degree. We measure how these four educational groups fare in terms of labor market outcomes. Across most outcomes such as earnings, probability of a full-time job and tenure length, those with vocational training are the closest to the collegeeducated in terms of early career experiences