The standard wage equation proposed by Mincer (1974) assumes that individuals start working after leaving school, which is not the actual case for many people. Using longitudinal data on Portuguese male workers, former working students, we estimate the total impact of an additional year of...

This paper provides an expression for the bias of the OLS estimator of the schooling coefficient in a simple static wage-schooling model where earnings persistence is not accounted for. It is argued that the OLS estimator of the schooling coefficient is biased upward, and the bias is increasing...

This paper argues in favor of a dynamic specification of the Mincer equation, where past observed earnings play the role of additional explanatory variable for current observed earnings. A dynamic approach offers an explanation why the return to schooling in terms of observed earnings is not...

A well-established empirical literature suggests that individual wages are persistent. Several theoretical arguments support this empirical finding. Yet, the standard approach to the estimation of schooling returns does not account for this fact. This paper investigates the consequences of...

Using Difference-in-Differences estimation and data from the European Community Household Panel, this paper suggests that the fixed exchange-rate policy adopted by Italy in the 1997-2000 period has reduced the real hourly wage growth of Italian full-time workers with permanent contracts, on...

The standard approach to the estimation of unemployment persistence assumes that quantile parameter heterogeneity does not matter. Using panel quantile autoregression techniques on state-level data for the United States (1980-2010), we suggest that it does.

Evidence on behavior of experts in credence goods markets raises an important causality issue: Do "fair prices" induce "good behavior", or do "good experts" post "fair prices"? To answer this question we propose and test a model with three seller types: "the good" choose fair prices and behave...

Credence goods markets are characterized by asymmetric information between sellers and consumers that may give rise to inefficiencies, such as under- and overtreatment or market break-down. We study in a large experiment with 936 participants the determinants for efficiency in credence goods...

Credence goods markets suffer from inefficiencies arising from informational asymmetries between expert sellers and customers. While standard theory predicts that inefficiencies disappear if customers can verify the quality received, verifiability fails to yield efficiency in experiments with...

We examine the influence of guilt and trust on the performance of credence goods markets. An expert can make a promise to a consumer first, whereupon the consumer can express her trust by paying an interaction price before the expert’s provision and charging decisions. We argue that the...