On the uncertain nature of human capital investments

The four studies presented here pertain to an often neglected characteristic of educational investments in human capital literature: its unpredictability and how individuals account for and respond to it.
The first study elicits, from a sample of Dutch high school students, the level of information about existing labor market conditions in general and future wage variability in particular, that individuals possess when deciding upon investing in university education. The third chapter assesses how, for various samples of individuals coming from different countries and different educational systems, different levels of education contribute to the increase of decrease of risk. In chapter 4 the importance of concerns about future payoffs uncertainty on choices of type of college education is gauged. To conclude, chapter 5 resumes the theme already discussed in chapter 3, but proposes a different, and possibly more robust, methodology for estimation.