This paper explores differences by race, ethnicity, and immigrant generation in an individual's likelihood of completing either a 2-year or a 4-year degree. Blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics are more likely than whites to complete a 4-year degree.

In most western societies, marital fertility began to decline in the nineteenth century. But in Ireland, fertility in marriage remained stubbornly high into the twentieth century. Explanations of this focus on the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Irish society. These arguments are often...

We extend the standard human capital earnings function to include dispersion in the return to schooling by treating the return as a random coefficient. If the rapid expansion in participation in higher education has been brought about by dipping further into the ability distribution, we should...

We apply a new estimator to the measurement of the economic returns to education. We control for endogenous education, unobserved ability and measurement error using only the natural heteroscedasticty of wages and education attainment. Our prefered estimate, 6.07%, is closer to the OLS estimate...

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether education and ability are substitutes or complements in the determination of earnings. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the...

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the level of ability. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the return to schooling is lower for...

In this paper, we compile a unique historical dataset that records strike activity in the British engineering industry from 1920 to 1970. These data have the advantage of containing a fairly homogenous set of companies and workers, covering a long period with varying labour market conditions,...

Based on the methodology of Beaudry and DiNardo (1991), this paper investigates the relative importance of the spot market and implicit contracts in the determination of British real wages. Empirical work is carried out separately for males and females with individual level data taken from the...

We estimate the wage penalty associated with working in the South African informal sector. To this end we use a rich data set on non-self employed males that allows one to accurately distinguish workers employed in the informal sector from those employed in the formal sector and link individuals...