Valuable experience: How internships affect university graduates’ income
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Date
2019-08
Publication Type
Working Paper
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
This paper analyzes whether and how attending an internship during tertiary education affects income. We address endogeneity with an IV approach that exploits information regarding whether the internship was a mandatory component of the study. We further address selection into programs with mandatory internship by using the share of mandatory internships at the closest university, exploiting the low mobility of Swiss students. The results suggest that doing an internship increases income. In contrast to the literature on internships we find that the effect mainly works by increasing human capital rather than through signaling, and mainly works through general rather than firm- or field-specific human capital.
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published
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Journal / series
Volume
459
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich
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Edition / version
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Date collected
Date created
Subject
Internship; Income; Human capital; signaling; Soft skills; Experience
Organisational unit
06334 - KOF FB Bildungssysteme / KOF Education Systems
02525 - KOF Konjunkturforschungsstelle / KOF Swiss Economic Institute