To combat negative trends in the youth labour market, policymakers around the world support vocational education and training (VET) programmes. This paper investigates how enrolment rates in upper‐secondary education programmes – general education, school‐based VET and dual VET – affect ten youth labour market indicators on integration and job quality. We run first‐difference generalized method of moments regressions on panel data of 36 countries for 2004 through 2014. We complement the existing literature by dealing with unobserved heterogeneity across time and reverse causality and by analysing non‐linear effects that might arise due to general equilibrium effects. Our findings show that school‐based VET and dual VET have different effects: school‐based VET's effect on the labour market depends on the outcome indicator and country, whereas dual VET overall improves both labour market integration and job quality. Depending on the labour market indicator, we find evidence for both linear and non‐linear effects. In educational reforms, policymakers should therefore consider the non‐linear and heterogeneous effects of VET.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractSwitzerland is famous for its vocational education and training (VET) system. This article describes Switzerland's success in integrating adolescents into the labour market, with emphasis on two aspects. First, dual-track VET, which combines learning at school and in host companies, is an attractive choice for adolescents. It prepares them for the labour market and for progression routes to higher education. Second, the firm's decision to train could be an example of the prisoner's dilemma, but Switzerland has managed to sidestep that issue and minimize concerns about poaching. Finally, we discuss what Spain could learn from the Swiss VET system. JEL-Classification: C71, I21

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