This paper introduces a tractable general equilibrium overlapping-generations model of human capital accumulation, and shows that it provides a consistent explanation of several key features of the evolution of the U.S. wage distribution from 1970 to 2000. The framework is based on the...

This paper develops and estimates a search model in which career-specific and firm-specific matches determine job mobility and wage growth. Each worker-firm and worker-career relationship is characterized by a match that evolves stochastically over time. At each period, a worker has three...

In this paper we explicitly model and estimate an education system that produces human capital. An important innovation is that technological change in the production functions associated with any level of education is permitted and the rate of change may be different at different levels and for...

In this paper we document substantial returns to occupational tenure. Everything else being constant, ten years of occupational tenure are likely to increase wages by at least $19\%$. Moreover, we show that when occupational experience is taken into account, tenure with an industry or an...

We study the optimal long-term contract offered to workers when firms are financially constrained in their investment plans. To alleviate the tightness of the financial constraints, firms promise an increasing wage profile to workers, that is, they pay lower wages today in exchange of higher...

What are the sources of rapid wage growth during a worker's early career? To address this question, I construct and estimate a model of strategic wage bargaining with on-the-job search to explore three different components of wages: general human capital, match-specific capital, and outside...

This paper presents a unified treatment of and explanation for the evolution of wages and employment in the U.S. over the last 30 years. Specifically, we account for the pattern of changes in wage inequality, for the increased relative wage and employment of women, for the emergence of the...