This paper estimates the economic and non-economic returns to volunteering for prime-aged women. A woman's decision to engage in unpaid work, and to marry and have children, is formulated as a forward-looking discrete choice dynamic programming problem. Simulated maximum likelihood estimates of...

This paper develops dynamic structural models - an option value model and a dynamic programming model - of the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application timing decision. We estimate the time to application from the point at which a health condition first begins to affect the kind...

We show that a calibrated dynamic skill accumulation model allowing for comparative advantages, can explain the weak (or negative) effects of schooling on productivity that have been recently reported (i) in the micro literature on compulsory schooling, ii) in the micro literature on estimating...

This paper considers the estimation of sequential schooling decisions made by agents who are endowed with subjective beliefs about their own ability. I use unique Italian panel data which provide information on i) the curvature of the per-period utility function, ii) schooling decisions, iii)...

We consider an artificial population of forward looking heterogeneous agents making decisions between schooling, employment, employment with training and household production, according to a behavioral model calibrated to a large set of stylized facts. Some of these agents are subject to policy...

We estimate a structural dynamic programming model of schooling decisions and obtain individual specific estimates of the local (and average) returns to schooling as well as the returns to experience. Homogeneity of the returns to human capital is strongly rejected in favor of a discrete...

Using a structural dynamic programming model, we investigate the relative importance of family background variables and individual specific abilities in explaining cross-sectional differences in schooling attainments and wages. Given scholastic ability, household background variables (especially...

In this paper, we formulate and estimate a structural model of post-schooling training that explicitly allows for possible complementarity between initial schooling levels and returns to training. Precisely, the wage outcome equation depends on accumulated schooling and on the incidence of...

A review of the basic theory of optimal open-source software contributions points to three key factors affecting supply: non-pecuniary benefits, future expected monetary returns, and opensource licence type. This paper argues that existing large-scale software developer surveys are inadequate...

This paper contains a survey of the recent literature devoted to the returns to schooling within a dynamic structural framework. I present a historical perspective on the evolution of the literature, from early static models set in a selectivity framework (Willis and Rosen, 1979) to the recent...