Do the Higher Educated Unemployed Crowd Out the Lower Educated Ones in a Competition for Jobs?

Cockx, Bart; Dejemeppe, Muriel

Do the Higher Educated Unemployed Crowd Out the Lower Educated Ones in a Competition for Jobs?

43 Pages Posted: 21 Aug 2002

Bart Cockx

Ghent University - Sherppa - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration; IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Muriel Dejemeppe

Catholic University of Louvain - School of Economic and Social Research

Date Written: August 2002

Abstract

This paper proposes a new method to estimate the extent of job competition between workers with different schooling levels. We estimate the structural parameters of a matching function generalised to incorporate crowding out effects. We use flow data out of unemployment containing information on the level of educational attainment of the worker, but not on the level of schooling required by the employer for the job. The method therefore avoids the bias induced by mismeasurement in the educational requirements. Applied to Belgian data, we find evidence of significant crowding out among dismissed workers, particularly at the highest schooling levels.

Keywords: Job Competition, Crowding Out, Overeducation, Matching Function, Duration Analysis

JEL Classification: J63, J64, C41

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Cockx, Bart L. W. and Dejemeppe, Muriel, Do the Higher Educated Unemployed Crowd Out the Lower Educated Ones in a Competition for Jobs? (August 2002). IZA Discussion Paper No. 541. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=323595