Policy-makers in almost all countries agree on one thing: namely on the importance of education and skills to ensuring future economic prosperity. A fruitful line of research has focused on determining the impact that acquiring education or training has on an individual's labour market productivity and earning prospects: this is known as rate of…

There is an extensive theoretical literature that postulates a trade off between child quantity and quality within a family. However, there is little causal evidence that speaks to this theory. Using a rich dataset on the entire population of Norway over an extended period of time, we examine the effects of family size and birth order on the…

This paper reports on a Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET) project that explored policies, programs and other initiatives by Australia's states and territories to support innovation, and to build vocational education and training (VET) capability to respond to its effects on skill needs. The project was undertaken in late…

Migration patterns to and from Australia are becoming complex with migration programmes increasingly targeted towards meeting the needs of the labour market and regional development. This paper provides an analysis of the permanent and temporary movements of people to and from Australia in the last three years and their impact on the skilled…

This paper is concerned with the strategies being adopted for vocational education and training (VET) in Australia and the lessons that could be learned for them from policies in other countries. Six issues are considered in the paper, each relates to or more of the objectives and particular strategies in the Australia's National Strategy for…

This project, conducted by the Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET) during 2003, set out to investigate the relationship between innovation and the provision of appropriate education and training in regional Australia. The project was designed as a pilot study with two main purposes: (1) To test whether and how the issues…

The labour market is one the most significant markets in modern economies. Today labour embodies increasing amounts of human capital in the form of skills, talents and knowledge. Migration of workers between regions and countries can contribute to efficiency. People are moving from areas in which they are underemployed or unemployed to areas in…

The Educational Research Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET) conducted a survey focusing on lifelong learning and the world of work, particularly on the need for retraining and upgrading of skills and knowledge. The survey involved five different approaches: surveys of the available quantitative and qualitative material; a…

The purpose of this project was to review the use of price measures in education and training and to consider the types of measures that could be applied. There are several contexts in which price measures are needed and the context will affect the type of measure of price change that is needed. Section 1 of the report discusses budget estimates…

Despite wide publicity and common usage, the concept of skills shortage has different meaning to different people depending on their perspective. Understanding the different concepts of skills shortages, their measurement and the causes of skill shortages is important if sound policies are to be developed in the areas of employment, education,…