Hessel Oosterbeek

Hessel Oosterbeek (born in Gouda, Netherlands, on March 11, 1959)[1] is a Dutch economist. He currently works as Professor of Economics at the University of Amsterdam.[2] In particular, Oosterbeek has conducted extensive research on the returns to schooling, the economics of training, investment contracts, and overeducation and has performed impact evaluations for various interventions in especially education. Oosterbeek ranks among the most-cited Dutch economists[3] and the world's leading education economists.[4]

Hessel Oosterbeek
Born (1959-03-11) March 11, 1959
Gouda, Netherlands
Alma materUniversity of Amsterdam
Scientific career
FieldsEconomics
InstitutionsSEO Economic Research
Cornell University
Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley
CESifo
Tinbergen Institute
Latin American Social Sciences Institute

Biography

A native of Gouda, Hessel Oosterbeek began working as a bookseller after finishing high school, but began studying economics in 1980 at the University of Amsterdam (UVA). Therein, he earned a MSc and a PhD in, respectively, 1985 and 1992, the latter with a thesis on human capital theory. While studying at UVA, Oosterbeek worked at several research institutions in Amsterdam, including the Foundation for Economic Research (SEO), the Center for Educational Research, and the Institute for Public Expenditures, and became an assistant professor at UVA (1988–98). After his graduation and several visiting appointments at Cornell University, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley, Oosterbeek was promoted to associate professor at UVA in 1998 and to full professor in 2000.[5] Additionally, he maintains professional affiliations with CESifo, Tinbergen Institute, the Amsterdam Institute for International Development, the Max Goote Center for Vocational Education and Training, and the Latin American Social Sciences Institute (FLACSO). Moreover, he has been a member of the editorial boards of the Economics of Education Review and Effective Education.[6]

Research

Hessel Oosterbeek's research interests include the economics of education, impact evaluation, experimental economics and development economics, which he has often explored in collaborations with notably Edwin Leuven, Randolph Sloof, Bas van der Klaauw and Joep Sonnemans. His research with Dinand Webbink in De Economist on higher education enrollment in the Netherlands won the 1997 Hennipman Award.[7] According to IDEAS/RePEc, Oosterbeek belongs to the top 3% of economists registered on IDEAS as ranked by research output.[8]

Research on overeducation

One early but persistent area of Oosterbeek's research is over-education in the Netherlands. Together with Joop Hartog, he finds that due to more higher education enrollment, undereducation in the Netherlands decreased throughout the 1960s and 1970s while overeducation increased, though the rate of return to education is positive even in cases of "overeducation", implying that overeducation doesn't necessarily imply private or social inefficiency.[9] By contrast, Oosterbeek and Hartog don't observe health, wealth or happiness among Dutch to increase linearly in education: individuals with only a non-vocational secondary school degree are generally healthier, wealthier and happier than TVET or university graduates; moreover, they find IQ to increase health, social background to increase wealth, and being a woman to increase happiness.[10] Oosterbeek's research on overeducation (and mismatch) are reviewed in his and Leuven's synthesis of those economic literatures in the Handbook of the Economics of Education.[11]

Research on the returns to education

Another early area of Oosterbeek's research concerns the returns to education. Together with Wim Groot, he finds strong support for the hypothesis that schooling enhances rather than uncovers productivity once schooling is disaggregated into effective, repeated, skipped, inefficient routing, and dropout years.[12] Moreover, Oosterbeek argues – along with Colm Harmon and Orley Ashenfelter – that estimates of the returns to education are warped by reporting bias, which they find to account for a large share of the differences in earlier estimates that were attributed to differences in the methods of estimation; correcting for the bias, they find returns to education to be particularly high in the U.S. and to have increased throughout the 1980s and 1990s.[13] In another contribution to the discussion on the sign and size of returns to education, Oosterbeek, Harmon and Ian Walker review the literature on the microeconomic returns to education and find that education unambiguously and substantially increases individuals' earnings.[14] Finally, in work with Leuven and Hans van Ophem, Oosterbeek observes that about one third of the variation in wage differentials between skill groups in developed economies are explained by differences in the net supply of skill groups, with relative demand and supply being a particularly strong determinant of relative wages of low-skilled workers.[15]

Research on the economics of training

A third area of research of Oosterbeek's research are the economics of private sector training. For the Netherlands in 1995, he finds workers' schooling, personal backgrounds, and job characteristics to determine their willingness to receive work-related training, while industry and workers' gender and age determine firms' gains from having a better trained workforce. Moreover, whereas for half of the untrained workers the expected net returns to training for the firms would be positive and those of the workers negative, for another third of untrained workers the opposite would have held true.[16] Furthermore, comparing the demand and supply of training in Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the US, Oosterbeek and Leuven find that the employer is typically the provider of training and often willing to pay for general training, that international differences in training largely reflect differences in the weights of certain worker and job characteristics, and that the demand for training tends to increase in workers' education and training.[17] Analysing the impact of legislation enabling Dutch firms to claim a larger share of their expenditures on employees' training if they are aged 40 or older, they find that the training rate of workers just above the age of 40 is 15–20% higher than that of workers just below 40, with the effect mainly reflecting the postponement of earlier training needs and having no significant effect on workers' wages.[18] However, using an estimation method in which they narrow down the comparison group to workers who wanted private-sector training but were unable to participate because of random events, Oosterbeek and Leuven observe only much smaller, statistically insignificant returns to training.[19]

Other research on the economics of education

Further topics in the economics of education wherein Oosterbeek has performed important research include the impacts of extra funding for IT on disadvantaged pupils' school achievement, of financial rewards for students, of entrepreneurship education, student exchanges, class size, and differences in gender-specific competitiveness. In particular, he finds that extra funding for personnel or computers and software targeted at primary schools with large populations of disadvantaged students significantly decrease student achievement, with extra funding for IT being particularly detrimental for girls (with Leuven, Webbink and Mikael Lindahl).[20] By contrast, he finds that smaller classes in the last three years of primary school in Sweden substantially increase cognitive and noncognitive ability at age 13, school achievement at age 16, and wages, earnings, and education completion throughout ages 27 to 42 (with Per Fredriksson and Björn Öckert).[21] Regarding secondary school, he finds gender-specific differences in competitiveness among Dutch high school students to explain about a fifth of gender differences in the choice of academic tracks, wherein boys tend to choose substantially more prestigious and thus more math- and science-intensive tracks than girls, as they tend to be more competitive (with Thomas Buser and Muriel Niederle).[22] Finally, with regard to university, he finds studying abroad and studying abroad longer to increase the probability of erstwhile exchange students living abroad among Dutch students (with Webbink);[23] the offer of financial rewards for Dutch university freshmen who pass all required first-year subjects to increase only the achievement of high-ability students while decreasing that of low-ability students and the effects to worsen over time, possibly due to the erosion of intrinsic motivation by the extrinsic reward (with Leuven and van der Klaauw);[24] and a major Dutch entrepreneurship education programme to have no impact on college students' self-assessed entrepreneurship skills and to in fact decrease their entrepreneurial intentions.[25]

Research on public-private wage differentials, ultimatum games and gender diversity

Lastly, Oosterbeek has also conducted miscellaneous research on topics such as public-private wage differentials, ultimatum games and gender diversity:

  • In the early 1990s, the earnings prospects of Dutch public sector workers were better in the public sector than in the private sector and vice versa, pointing to comparative advantages among workers (with Hartog).[26]
  • In ultimatum games, responders (but not proposers) display significant differences in their behaviour depending on geographic region, though these differences are poorly correlated with cultural traits such as Hofstede's cultural dimensions (with Sloof and van de Kuilen).[27]
  • Business teams with an equal gender mix to outperform male-dominated teams with regard to sales and profits, though neither complementarities, learning, monitoring, and conflicts (with van Praag and Sander Hoogendoorn).[28]

References
  1. Curriculum vitae of Hessel Oosterbeek from the website of FLASCO. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  2. Faculty profile of Hessel Oosterbeek on the website of the University of Amsterdam. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  3. Ranking of Dutch economists registered on IDEAS/RePEc. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  4. Ranking of education economists registered on IDEAS/RePEc. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  5. Curriculum vitae of Hessel Oosterbeek from the website of FLASCO. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  6. Curriculum vitae of Hessel Oosterbeek from his personal website (status: January 2018). Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  7. Curriculum vitae of Hessel Oosterbeek from the website of FLASCO. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  8. Ranking of economists on IDEAS/RePEc. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  9. Hartog, J.; Oosterbeek, H. (1988). "Education, allocation and earnings in the Netherlands: Overschooling?". Economics of Education Review. 7 (2): 185–194. doi:10.1016/0272-7757(88)90043-X. ISSN 0272-7757. OCLC 818862416.
  10. Hartog, J.; Oosterbeek, H. (1998). "Health, wealth and happiness: Why pursue a higher education?". Economics of Education Review. 17 (3): 245–256. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.198.6764. doi:10.1016/S0272-7757(97)00064-2.
  11. Leuven, E.; Oosterbeek, H. (2011). Hanushek, E.A.; Machin, S.; Wößmann, L. (eds.). Overeducation and mismatch in the labor market (PDF). Handbook of the Economics of Education. 4. Amsterdam. pp. 283–326. doi:10.1016/B978-0-444-53444-6.00003-1. hdl:10419/51653. ISBN 9780444534446. S2CID 55445932. SSRN 1771245.
  12. Groot, W.; Oosterbeek, H (1994). "Earnings Effects of Different Components of Schooling: Human Capital versus Screening". Review of Economics and Statistics. 76 (2): 317–321. doi:10.2307/2109885. JSTOR 2109885.
  13. Ashenfelter, O.; Harmon, C.; Oosterbeek, H. (1999). "A review of estimates of the schooling/earnings relationship, with tests for publication bias". Labour Economics. 6 (4): 453–470. doi:10.1016/S0927-5371(99)00041-X. ISSN 0927-5371. OCLC 639064435.
  14. Harmon, C.; Oosterbeek, H.; Walker, I. (2003). "The returns to education: Microeconomics". Journal of Economic Surveys. 17 (2): 115–156. doi:10.1111/1467-6419.00191. ISSN 1467-6419. OCLC 231851794. S2CID 55485385. SSRN 416648.
  15. Leuven, E.; Oosterbeek, H.; Van Ophem, H. (2004). "Explaining international differences in male skill wage differentials by differences in demand and supply of skill". Economic Journal. 114 (495): 466–486. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2004.00217.x. ISSN 1468-0297. JSTOR 3590104. OCLC 1066891226. S2CID 73723378. SSRN 265188.
  16. Oosterbeek, H. (1998). "Unravelling supply and demand factors in work-related training". Oxford Economic Papers. 50 (2): 266–283. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.oep.a028645. JSTOR 3488734.
  17. Leuven, E.; Oosterbeek, H. (2000) [1990]. The demand and supply of work-related training: Evidence from four countries. Research in Labor Economics. 18. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. pp. 303–330. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.483.3590. doi:10.1016/S0147-9121(99)18026-9. ISBN 978-0-7623-0584-1. ISSN 0147-9121. OCLC 477327402.
  18. Leuven, E.; Oosterbeek, H. (2004) [2000]. "Evaluating the effect of tax deductions on training". Journal of Labor Economics. 22 (2): 461–488. doi:10.1086/381257. ISSN 0734-306X. JSTOR 381257. OCLC 605915677. SSRN 246470.
  19. Leuven, E.; Oosterbeek, H. (2008). "An alternative approach to estimate the wage returns to private-sector training". Journal of Applied Econometrics. 23 (4): 423–434. doi:10.1002/jae.1005.
  20. Leuven, E.; Lindahl, Mikael; Oosterbeek, Hessel; Webbink, Dinand (2007). "The effect of extra funding for disadvantaged pupils on achievement". Review of Economics and Statistics. 89 (4): 721–736. doi:10.1162/rest.89.4.721. S2CID 13566219. SSRN 542462.
  21. Fredriksson, P.; Öckert, B.; Ooosterbeek, H. (2012). "Long-term effects of class size" (PDF). Quarterly Journal of Economics. 128 (1): 249–285. doi:10.1093/qje/qjs048. S2CID 21570799.
  22. Buser, T.; Niederle, M.; Oosterbeek, H. (2014) [2012]. "Gender, competitiveness, and career choices". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 129 (3): 1409–1447. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.353.7973. doi:10.1093/qje/qju009. S2CID 2118141.
  23. Oosterbeek, H.; Webbink, D. (2011). "Does studying abroad induce a brain drain?". Economica. 78 (310): 347–366. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.523.4654. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0335.2009.00818.x. ISSN 1468-0335. OCLC 67183111. S2CID 30755769.
  24. Leuven, E.; Oosterbeek, H.; Van der Klaauw, B. (2010). "The effect of financial rewards on students' achievement: Evidence from a randomized experiment" (PDF). Journal of the European Economic Association. 8 (6): 1243–1265. doi:10.1111/j.1542-4774.2010.tb00554.x. ISSN 1542-4774. OCLC 969745054.
  25. Oosterbeek, H.; Van Praag, M.; Ijsselstein, A. (2010). "The impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship skills and motivation". European Economic Review. 54 (3): 442–454. doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2009.08.002. S2CID 11391574.
  26. Hartog, J.; Oosterbeek, H. (1993). "Public and private sector wages in the Netherlands" (PDF). European Economic Review. 37 (1): 97–114. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.505.8168. doi:10.1016/0014-2921(93)90072-I. ISSN 0014-2921. OCLC 224614716.
  27. Oosterbeek, H.; Sloof, R.; Van De Kuilen, G. (2004) [2001]. "Cultural differences in ultimatum game experiments: Evidence from a meta-analysis". Experimental Economics. 7 (2): 171–188. doi:10.1023/b:exec.0000026978.14316.74. S2CID 17659329. SSRN 286428.
  28. Hoogendoorn, S.; Oosterbeek, H.; Van Praag, M. (2013) [2011]. "The impact of gender diversity on the performance of business teams: Evidence from a field experiment" (PDF). Management Science. 59 (7): 1514–1528. doi:10.1287/mnsc.1120.1674. ISSN 0025-1909. OCLC 829718561. SSRN 1826024.
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