EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION AND RETURNS ON CREDENTIALS

In this article an empirical analysis is conducted in order to detect the relationship between returns on credentials from secondary and hig her education and the proliferation rate of these credentials. Almost 10 000 Dutch male respondents from a number of surveys are classified into labour-market cohorts, and are used for the estimation of the eff ect of their credentials on their occupational level. Findings from re gression analyses reveal that additional returns are related to the ra te of proliferation in a curvilinear pattern. Total returns, which dep end on these additional returns, are decreasing for those who entered the labour-market after 1955.