This thesis brings to the forefront of the existing literature the importance of analyzing transitional dynamics among different levels of schooling and to the labor market. I perform empirical analyses using confidential longitudinal survey data from Statistics Canada; employing program evaluation techniques, and regression modelling. The first chapter is joint work with Louis Christofides, Michael Hoy and Thanasis Stengos. We explore the forces that shape the development of aspirations and the achievement of grades during high school and the role that these aspirations, grades, and other variables play in educational outcomes such as going to university and graduating. We find that parental expectations and peer effects have a significant impact on educational outcomes through grades, aspirations, and their interconnectedness. Apart from this indirect path, parents and peers also influence educational outcomes directly. Policy measures that operate on parental influences may modify educational outcomes in desired directions. The second chapter estimates the wage returns to university quality. I distinguish between two distinct measures of university quality. The first is a survey-based university reputation ranking, and the second is a new ranking, which I construct from several university characteristics in order to objectively reflect the university quality. The findings indicate that the wage returns of having a Bachelor’s degree from a highly ranked university are 10.3% for women, and 13.4% for men. The returns are higher when comparing the wages in the top and bottom tails of the ranking distribution and gender differences are identified. The third chapter is a large-scale study on how students form and revise expectations. This affects their decision to drop out and/or change field of study once they have accessed post-secondary education. I find evidence that students change expectations and educational pathways as they are exposed to unexpected new information. This informs them about the quality of match between their own ability and the program that they are enrolled. Using non-parametric methods I show that this relationship is not linear.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:28:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ageu Libonati Junior.pdf: 939635 bytes, checksum: 6528ab3c986bd8fca76dacec9b6d0734 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-11-17 / The aim of this work is to study the passive submission of the social contribution named Education Wage, currently predicted on the article 212, § 5.º, of the 1988 s Federal Constitution. The study analyses the norms of that contribution, since it appeared in the 1934 s Federal Constitution until its current form, with the objective to show that exists a legislature s clear intention to specify the passive subject of this tax. To prepare a concept of company, from the analysis of our Federal Constitution, having as a main objective its systematic interpretation, also considering its linguistics system that, produced by the Constituent Assembly, brings about messages to the whole society. Then, the correct interpretation of company, as it is in the Federal Constitution, reveals the potentials taxpayers of that social contribution, which must be respected when the legislature turn on that concept. This work demonstrates that our Supreme Court, despite several jurisprudence precedents, did not face the question about the concept of company, once they judged that the laws 9.424/96 e 9.766/98 are according to our Constitution. Therefore, the correct way to broach the education wage s passive submission deserves special attention and is the target of this study / O presente trabalho tem por desígnio o estudo da sujeição passiva da contribuição social denominada salário-educação, atualmente prevista no art. 212, § 5.º da Constituição Federal de 1988. O estudo faz análise das proposições normativas desta contribuição, desde o seu aparecimento na Constituição Federal de 1934 até os moldes atuais, procurando demonstrar que há uma clara intenção do legislador constitucional em determinar precisamente o sujeito passivo deste tributo. Elaborar um conceito de empresa, a partir da análise da própria Constituição Federal, tendo como foco principal a sua interpretação sistemática, considerando-a como um sistema lingüístico que, produzido pelo Poder Constituinte, é portador de mensagens para toda a sociedade. Dessa forma, a correta interpretação do vocábulo constitucional empresa revela os possíveis contribuintes dessa contribuição social, que devem ser respeitados quando o legislador está positivando esse conceito. O trabalho demonstra que o Supremo Tribunal Federal, apesar de vários precedentes jurisprudenciais, não enfrentou a questão sobre o conceito do signo empresa, ao analisar constitucionalidade nas Leis ns. 9.424/96 e 9.766/98. Portanto, a correta abordagem da sujeição passiva do salário-educação merece destaque e é alvo deste estudo

La acumulación de Capital Humano es fundamental para explicar recientes procesos de crecimiento económico experimentados en numerosos países, los cambios en la distribución de la renta salarial, en la localización de la actividad productiva, del comercio, etc... Por ello, consideramos fundamental avanzar en el conocimiento que dicha acumulación haya podido tener en una economía como la española, caracterizada recientemente por un crecimiento intenso en la educación de los trabajadores. Por este motivo se realizan tres análisis. En el primero, descomponemos la distribución de los salarios para conocer qué factores han afectado a su cambio desde 1980. Dedicamos especial atención al efecto que el cambio educativo haya podido tener en la desigualdad salarial. En un segundo análisis descomponemos el cambio en la brecha salarial entre trabajo cualificado y no cualificado entre cambios en la demanda y oferta de cualificación. Por último, estimamos las externalidades del capital humano en España a nivel regional. / Human Capital accumulation is crucial for explaining countries' recent economic growth episodes, changes in income and wage distribution, production localization, trade, etc. Thus, we consider important enhance the knowledge for the Human Capital accumulation effects on Spanish economy, characterized by intensive growth of educated workers. Then, we do three analysis. First, we decompose the wage distribution to know which factors are behind its changes since 1980. We give special attention to education effects on that wage inequality change. In our second analysis, we decompose the more educated wage premium change between changes in demand and supply of skills. Finally, our third analysis try to estimate human capital externalities for Spanish regions.