Abstract
Abstract
Expected earnings and expected returns to education are seen by labor economists as a major determinant of educational attainment. In spite of this, the empirical knowledge about expectations and their formation is scarce. In this paper we report the results of the first systematic study of the wage expectations of European college students. Our data are based on the replies to the same questionnaire by more than 6000 college students all over Europe. We study the determinants of wage expectations and expected employment probabilities, the variability of these expectations within a field of study and their variation across universities and fields. We also examine the trade-off between expected starting wages and wage growth. In the final section of the paper, we contrast expected returns to education with actual returns estimated from country-specific micro-data.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2001 |
Fields of science
- 405002 Agricultural economics
- 502 Economics
- 502001 Labour market policy
- 502002 Labour economics
- 502003 Foreign trade
- 502009 Corporate finance
- 502010 Public finance
- 502012 Industrial management
- 502013 Industrial economics
- 502018 Macroeconomics
- 502020 Market research
- 502021 Microeconomics
- 502025 Econometrics
- 502027 Political economy
- 502039 Structural policy
- 502042 Environmental economics
- 502046 Economic policy
- 502047 Economic theory
- 504014 Gender studies
- 506004 European integration
- 507016 Regional economy
- 303010 Health economics