Youth labour-market performance,institutions and Vet systems: a cross-country analysis

Youthareavulnerablecategoryofworkers,sincetheyareinadelicatephase of their working life, the first entry in the labour market. Young graduates and early school leavers are involved in the school–to–work transition process, whose duration considerably varies across countries. In this paper we explore the impact of labourmarketandeducationalinstitutionsonyouthlabour-marketperformanceacrossOECD countries for the 1985–2012 period. We extend to 2012 the CEP–OECD dataset and match it with series about youth population, schooling and the vocational education and training participation rates from OECD and World Bank. We estimate a dynamic panel model, building upon Bassanini and Duval, “Employment Patterns in OECD Countries: Reassessing the Role of Policies and Institutions? OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers n. 35, Paris, 2006, including unemployment rate in the analysis, articulating the analysis upon various age groups (15–24, 20–24) and distinguishing between male and female workers. The tax wedge, changes in union density, the minimum wage, educational attainment and the level of economic activity stand out as the key determinants of youth employability (minimum wage has not howeverthesignmostoftenexpectedintheliterature).VETprogrammesparticipation alsomatter,althoughonlyintheshort-run.Therearealsosomeinterestingdifferences