Educational choices in Germany. Empirical essays in the economics of education.

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Autor/in	Storck, Johanna
Titel	Educational choices in Germany. Empirical essays in the economics of education. Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Bildungsentscheidungen in Deutschland. Bildungsökonomische Essays.
Quelle	Berlin (2013), 155 S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei (1); PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei (2) Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 2012.
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie; Graue Literatur
URN	urn:nbn:de:kobv:188-fudissthesis000000042061-9
Schlagwörter	Bildungsökonomie; Lebenseinkommen; Studiengebühren; Studienwahl; Studienerfolg; Studienort; Studienortwahl; Hochschulschrift; Deutschland
Abstract	"The focus of this thesis is the analysis of educational choices and outcomes at different points in a student's life in Germany. The thesis aims to inform about the determinants of a students educational choices and the outcomes of these choices. Knowledge about these factors is important when thinking about the design of an educational system that gives all students the opportunity to receive the optimal education, conditional on their level of ability. The first chapter analyzes if students are willing to move from their home federal state to another state to avoid paying tuition fees. Our results show that with the introduction of the state-specific tuition fees the probability of applying for a university in the home state falls by 2 percentage points (baseline: 69 percent) for high-school graduates who come from a state with tuition fees. Moreover, students with (very) good grades have an even higher probability of applying in their home state than they would have had in a scenario without tuition fees, while students with worse grades are more likely to leave. This heterogeneous effect is likely to have consequences for the composition of students in universities and can be valuable for the consideration of the future design and implementation of a tuition fee system. Chapter 2 compares the monetary benefits of graduating from different fields of education. Positive economic returns to the level of education have been consistently found but not many studies differentiate by field when estimating returns to education. By comparing the returns and the earnings risk of graduating from one of 74 fields of education, we show that not only the level of education is important for later returns but also the chosen field. A longer university education does not always pay off against a shorter vocational training or university of applied science education. Considering earnings risks further suggests that only looking at the average returns does not always give the correct picture on what the most financially attractive educational choice is. The information on the financial returns to fields of education can be an important factor in a prospective students choice of post-secondary education. Chapter 3 compares estimates of the differences between lifetime earnings of persons with different secondary school degrees and identifies the effect of the earnings expectations on educational choices. A comparison of earnings of a person with a low-qualifying school degree and vocational training as a post-secondary education and a person with a high-qualifying 'Abitur' and the same level of post-secondary education indicates that a high value is attached to the 'Abitur'. The earnings a student can expect also influences his decision on the chosen degree. As studies on university enrollment have already shown, an increase in expected earnings with a certain degree increases the share of students who obtain that degree. The sensitivity of earnings varies by socio-economic background and by the earlier school attendance of a student. This suggests that the share and composition of school leavers with the 'Abitur' could be altered if a reform, as for example the shortening of years of schooling to the 'Abitur', increases the expected lifetime earnings. How does the attendance of a high-qualifying school type as the 'Gymnasium' in Germany affect the later educational decisions of a student? This question will be investigated in the fourth chapter. Applying OLS with many control variables and an instrumental variable approach, we find a significant effect of the attendance on later outcomes. Hence, the estimates suggest that even when comparing assumably equal students, the attendance of a 'Gymnasium' increases the probability to enter an academic path later. Possible explanations are the reduced costs of earning the 'Abitur' because a transfer to a school that offers the 'Abitur' is not necessary but also better and more motivated peers and teachers could be impact factors. To validate our results, we apply a new method by Altonji 2005 that determines the possible bias of the estimated effect due to unobservable variables. The results from this method indicate that a bias from unobservables is in fact too large as for us to determine with certainty if there is indeed a causal effect of the attendance of a 'Gymnasium' on the outcomes of interest." (author's abstract).
Erfasst von	GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Mannheim
Update	2013/3