ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

The purpose of this paper is to examine how demand for labor affects the job seeker's decision on the level of investment in education. In the current paradigm of economic growth in which innovations and technological developments generally weaken the strength demand for labor and increases the uncertainty related to employment, this paper provides a theoretical framework that can be used as a basic framework in understanding the decision of investment in education in varying conditions of demand for labor. The following are the findings of this paper. First, the level of investment in education can generally be regarded to be higher as the demand for labor exacerbates but for the job seekers with a certain characteristic. Second, the Arrow-Pratt absolute risk-aversion measure is the characteristic of the job seeker that determines in what direction the job seeker changes in the level of investment in education, For an arbitrary level of demand for labor there exists a certain threshold which determines the minimum degree of risk-aversion required for the job seeker’s Arrow-Pratt should go over to increase the level of education as demand for labor weakens. Third, the job seekers lower the level of education even though the demand condition in labor markets weakens if the compensation function does not depend on the level of education. This is surprising because it turns out that one of the reasons why job seekers invest in education is that they want to be recognized in their compensation for their level of education even when more education still raises the probability of employment.

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