GSBE research memoranda 

About: GSBE research memoranda is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Wage & Higher education. It has an ISSN identifier of 2666-8807. Over the lifetime, 248 publications have been published receiving 2135 citations.

Employee recognition and performance: A field experiment

Abstract: This paper reports the results from a controlled field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of public recognition on employee performance. We hired more than 300 employees to work on a three-hour data-entry task. In a random sample of work groups, workers unexpectedly received recognition after two hours of work. We find that recognition increases subsequent performance substantially, and particularly so when recognition is exclusively provided to the best performers. Remarkably, workers who did not receive recognition are mainly responsible for this performance increase. This result is consistent with workers having a preference for conformity.

The effects of training and overeducation on career mobility in a segmented labour market

Abstract: This paper analyses the effects of both training and overeducation on upward mobility in the internal labour market, the professional market and the “supplementary labour market”. The latter segment can be considered as a broadly defined secondary labour market as it is not restricted to the low‐level unskilled jobs only. This broader definition – also found in initial segmentation theory – allows for the changed character of the secondary labour market in the industrialized countries. As expected, “career training” influences upward mobility positively. However, contrary to the predictions of segmentation theory, particularly in the supplementary labour market career training is a means of gaining promotion to a higher level job. Overeducation also affects upward mobility positively, which indicates that overeducation is to some extent a temporary phenomenon at the individual level. However, this also holds in particular in the supplementary segment of the labour market. The estimation results show that the supplementary labour market is less of a dead end than the segmentation theory predicts and is a more valuable place to get training than has been recognized. The supplementary market probably plays an important role in the transition process between initial education and the labour market. Although workers may be initially overeducated in their first jobs, a supplementary segment job could be an attractive step towards reaching a more suitable position in the labour market.

Job-worker mismatch and cognitive decline

Abstract: We have used longitudinal test data on various aspects of people's cognitive abilities to analyze whether overeducated workers are more vulnerable to a decline in their cognitive abilities, and undereducated workers are less vulnerable. We found that a job-worker mismatch induces a cognitive decline with respect to immediate and delayed recall abilities, cognitive flexibility and verbal fluency. Our findings indicate that, to some extent, it is the adjustment of the ability level of the overeducated and undereducated workers that adjusts initial job-worker mismatch. This adds to the relevance of preventing overeducation, and shows that being employed in a challenging job contributes to workers' cognitive resilience.

Do older workers have more trouble using a computer than younger workers

Abstract: This paper examines the computer use of older workers from the perspective that the availability of skills is not the only factor relevant for the decision to invest in computers. Using British data, we show that computer use does not depend on age when taking into account wage costs and the tasks to be performed. Older workers embody less computer skills than younger workers, but the relative lack of computer skills does not negatively affect the wages of older workers. Hence, the analysis does not find support for the concern about older workers not being able to cope with computers.

Educational mismatches and skills: new empirical tests of old hypotheses

Abstract: In this paper, we empirically explore how the often reported relationship between overeducation and wages can best be understood. Exploiting the newly published Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data (OECD 2013), we are able to achieve a better estimation of the classical ORU-model (Duncan and Hoffman, 1981), by controlling for heterogeneity of observable skills. Our findings suggest that 1) a considerable part of the effect of educational mismatches can be attributed to skills heterogeneity, and 2) that the extent to which skills explain educational mismatches varies by institutional contexts. These observations suggest that skills matter for explaining wage effects of education and educational mismatches, but the extent to which this is the case also depends on institutional contexts.