PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Brunello, Giorgio AU - Lucifora, Claudio AU - Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf TI - The Wage Expectations of European Business and Economics Students AID - 10.3368/jhr.39.4.1116 DP - 2004 Oct 02 TA - Journal of Human Resources PG - 1116--1142 VI - 39 IP - 4 4099 - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/39/4/1116.short 4100 - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/39/4/1116.full SO - J Hum Resour2004 Oct 02; 39 AB - Expected earnings and expected returns to education are seen by labor economists as a major determinant of educational attainment. In spite of this, the empirical knowledge about expectations and their formation is scarce. In this paper we report the results of the first systematic study of the wage expectations of European university students. Our data are based on a uniform questionnaire answered by about 3,000 business and economics university students across Europe. We study the determinants of wage expectations and expected employment probabilities, the variability of these expectations and their variation across countries and universities. We also examine the tradeoff between expected starting wages and expected wage growth.