One competitive-market explanation of interindustry wage differentials that is not challenged by the persistence of these differentials is that they are due to differences across workers in unobserved ability or quality. In contrast, this paper explores the unobserved ability hypothesis by using...

Over the 1980s there were sharp increases in the return to schooling estimated with conventional wage regressions. We use both a signaling model and a human capital model to explore how the relationship between ability and schooling could have changed over this period in ways Chat would have...

We examine evidence on omitted-ability bias in estimates of the economic return to schooling, using proxies for unobserved ability. We consider measurement error in these ability proxies and the potential endogeneity of both experience and schooling, and examine wages at labor market entry and...

Women who have first births relatively late in life earn higher wages. This paper offers an explanation of this fact based on a staple life-cycle model of human capital investment and timing of first birth. The model yields conditions (that are plausibly satisfied) under which late childbearers...

We examine evidence on omitted-ability bias in estimates of the economic return to schooling, using proxies for unobserved ability. We consider measurement error in these ability proxies and the potential endogeneity of both experience and schooling, and examine wages at labor market entry and...

Over the 1980s there were sharp increases in the return to schooling estimated with conventional wage regressions. We use both a signaling model and a human capital model to explore how the relationship between ability and schooling could have changed over this period in ways Chat would have...

Interindustry wage differentials in wage regressions estimated for individuals have been interpreted as evidence consistent with efficiency wage models. A principal competing explanation is that these differentials are generated by differences across workers in unobserved ability. This paper...

The principal justification for minimum wage legislation resides in improving the economic condition of low-wage workers. Most previous analyses of the distributional effects of minimum wages have been confined to simulation exercises employing rather restrictive assumptions that guarantee the...

The principal justification for minimum wage legislation resides in improving the economic condition of low-wage workers. Most previous analyses of the distributional effects of minimum wages have been confined to simulation exercises employing rather restrictive assumptions that guarantee the...

Previous studies have often suggested that wives experience a decline in labor-market fortunes after an internal migration of a married couple. This evidence is consistent with wives being tied movers on average. I use the British Household Panel Survey to consider the extent to which wive...