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Wage Expectations: A Comparison of Swiss and US Students
Author(s) -
Wolter Stefan C.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
kyklos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-6435
pISSN - 0023-5962
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6435.00109
Subject(s) - wage , human capital , economics , variety (cybernetics) , human capital theory , labour economics , career path , path analysis (statistics) , demographic economics , management , economic growth , artificial intelligence , statistics , mathematics , computer science
Wage expectations can play a significant role in a variety of economic areas. This study analyses the wage expectations of students who are on the verge of making a decision concerning their educational path or who have already reached such a decision. Since each student in our study has been asked to discuss expectations in relation to various educational scenarios, this data can be used to check certain human capital theory assumptions. It is possible to ascertain the wage effects which students expect from certain educational decisions. Moreover it is possible to assess the expected rates of return on education without asking the students directly. The results of this study make it clear that both in the USA and in Switzerland the wage expectations of students do not differ significantly from the cross‐sectional labor market data, despite considerable heterogeneity in some cases.