Under communism, workers had their wages set according to a centrally-determined wage grid. In this paper we use new micro data on men to estimate returns to human capital under the communist wage grid and during the transition to a market economy. We use data from the Czech Republic because it...

The paper examines the optimal level of training investment when trained workers are mobile, wage contracts are time-consistent, and training comprises both specific and general skills. It is shown that, in the absence of a social planner, the firm has ex-post monopsonistic power that drives...

It is well known that workers in Europe appear to receive more firm-provided general training than their counterparts in the United States. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that firms, in many cases, pay for the general training, contrary to the predictions of Becker (1964). In important...