Vocational training and general education are the two predominant forms of secondary schooling...

Vocational training and general education are the two predominant forms of secondary schooling around the world. Most studies that compare the effect of vocational and general education on labor market outcomes in the cross-section suffer from selection bias because less able students are more

likely to enroll in vocational programs. To avoid this bias, Malamud and Pop-Eleches exploit a 1973 educational reform in Romania that shifted a large proportion of students from vocational training to general education. Using data from the 1992 Romanian Census, the authors analyze the effect of this policy in the context of a transition economy that experienced a decline in manufacturing and a reallocation of labor to new jobs. They fred that cohorts affected by the policy were significantly less likely to work in manual or craft-related occupations but no less likely to be unemployed or out of the labor force than their counterparts who were not affected by the policy. Therefore, the authors conclude that the cross-sectional differences in labor market outcomes between graduates of vocational and general schools are largely a consequence of selection.