Wage effects of an extra year of basic vocational education

Not obtained at secondary depth

Dutch basic-vocational-school graduates around the 1975 extension of all three-year programmes to four years, with a matching rise in the compulsory school-leaving age.

Difference-in-differences on a clean national policy shock. The comparison is QUANTITY (an extra year) rather than TYPE, so it speaks only obliquely to the vocational-versus-general question. Graded C rather than B because it was read at secondary depth and the parallel-trends case and sample could not be verified.

No beneficial long-term wage effect from the extra year of basic vocational education. The authors' interpretation is the one worth carrying: this population gains as much from an extra year of work experience as from an extra year of vocational school, so the opportunity cost of vocational schooling for marginal students is real.

Low. Cohort-level exposure to a national policy change.

A single-country policy evaluation with no direct replication. It is consistent in spirit with Žilić and with Hall (2016) — adding schooling time or general content to a vocational track buys nothing.