We investigate the returns to postsecondary education relaxing the standard assumption that it proceeds in a continuous manner. Using a unique survey that collects information on a representative cohort of graduates, we are able to estimate the effects of delaying school among successful...

This paper examines the evolution of the returns to human capital in Canada over the period 1980-2006. Most of the analysis is based on Census data, and on weekly wage and salary earnings of full-time workers. Our main finding is that the returns to education increased substantially for Canadian...

Au Canada, environ 20 % des emplois sont réglementés. En moyenne, ces emplois sont mieux rémunérés car ils exigent en général un meilleur niveau d’éducation ou de formation et la réglementation contrôlant l’accès à ces emplois tend à en restreindre l’admission. La politique...

The earnings and occupational task requirements of immigrants to Canada are analyzed. The growing education levels of immigrants in the 1990s have not led to a large improvement in earnings as one might expect if growing computerization was leading to a rising return to non-routine cognitive...

About 20% of Canadians work in regulated occupations. On average, regulated occupations are expected to provide higher pay because they generally require a high level of education and/or training, and the regulations governing access to these occupations tend to restrict entrance into them....

Innovative workplace practices based on multi-tasking and ICT that have been diffusing in most OECD countries since the 1990s have strong consequences on working conditions. Available data show together with the emergence of new organizational forms like multi-tasking, the increase in the...

We propose four arguments favoring the idea that medical effectiveness, adult longevity and height started to increase in Europe before the industrial revolution. This may have prompted households to increase their investment in human skills as a response to longer lives and initiated the...

Many EU countries are confronted with low employment rates, particularly among elderly workers. At the same time, levels of human capital are on the rise. Should this lift the age of retirement and lead to higher lifetime employment rates ? In order to explore these issues, we develop a simple...

This paper investigates the effect of tax progression on labour market outcomes in an equilibrium search model with wage bargain and endogenous human capital. We show that this effect depends on whether the firm and the worker can write a binding contract on human capital investments or not. If...

In this paper we study the economic determinants of the inter-sectoral distribution of skilled workers and the long-run consequences of imperfect competition on growth within an R&D-based growth model with human capital accumulation. We find that steady-state growth is driven only by incentives...