Does learning trigger learning throughout adulthood? Evidence from training participation of the employed population

• Published in: Economics of education review Vol. 62; no. February; pp. 82 - 90
• Main Authors: Kramer, Anica, Tamm, Marcus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01-02-2018
• Subjects: Auswirkung; Betriebliche Weiterbildung; Bildungsbeteiligung; Bildungsertrag; Dauer; Hochschulabsolvent; Hochschule; Humankapital; Lebenslanges Lernen; Lifelong learning; Motivation; Partizipation; Returns to schooling; Schulbildung; Studiendauer; Training; Weiterbildung; Training; Returns to schooling; Lifelong learning; I21; I24; I26; J24
• ISSN: 0272-7757; 1873-7382
• DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2017.11.004

•The paper analyzes the causal impact of education on training.•The regional proximity to a university is used as instrument for education.•Each year of education increases training participation by around 3.7 percentage points.•This confirms that early educational investments trigger investments later in life.
Individuals with more years of education generally acquire more training later on in life. Such a relationship may be due to skills learned in early periods increasing returns to educational investments in later periods. Using German data, this paper addresses the question whether the complementarity between education and training is causal. The identification is based on exogenous variation in years of education due to the buildup of universities. Results confirm that education has a significant impact on training participation during working life.