We estimate the impact of schooling on monthly earnings from 1950 to 2000 in Romania. Nearly constant at about 3-4 percent during the socialist period, the coefficient on schooling in a conventional earnings regression rises steadily during the 1990s, reaching 8.5 percent by 2000. Our analysis...

Recent studies have found a large earnings premium to attending a more selective college, but the mechanisms underlying this premium have received little attention and remain unclear. In order to shed light on this question, I develop a multidimensional signaling model relying on college grades...

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration issued Training and Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) 09-08 Change 1 on June 5, 2009. This guidance letter revises the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) performance measures for federal workforce development...

Despite tremendous recent interest in the subject of student debt by both researchers and policymakers, little is known about how the distribution of college graduate debt has been evolving and what factors can explain it. We use National Postsecondary Student Aid Study data from 1990 through...

This chapter is a draft of Chapter 7 of a planned book, Preschool and Jobs: Human Development as Economic Development, and Vice Versa. This book analyzes early childhood programs’ effects on regional economic development. Four early childhood programs are considered: 1) universally accessible...

This paper is a draft of Chapter 8 of a planned book, Preschool and Jobs: Human Development as Economic Development, and Vice Versa. This book analyzes early childhood programs’ effects on regional economic development. Four early childhood programs are considered: 1) universally accessible...

States have begun to use training subsidies as a policy tool for employment retention and business competitiveness. This paper summarizes a survey of states concerning their investments in incumbent worker training. Altogether, states are investing about $550 to $800 million, which is perhaps...

The study estimates the employment effect of vocational training programs for the unemployed in urban Russia. The results of propensity score matching indicate that training programs had a non-negative overall effect on the program participants relative to non-participants.

Findings from an evaluation of a workplace literacy program funded by the State of Indiana are presented. Working with employers, providers were given considerable latitude to design their own training regimens. The state awarded certificates to workers who achieved certain levels of proficiency...

In finding a career, workers tend to make numerous job changes, with the majority of "complex" changes (i.e. those involving changes of industry) occurring relatively early in their working lives. This pattern suggests that workers tend to experiment with different types of work before settling...