A growing body of research suggests that skilled immigrants, particularly those in the “STEM†fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), are not only more innovative than their native-born counterparts but also have the potential to produce positive productivity...

Ever since the seminal work of Stigler (1962), economists have recognized that information in markets is costly to acquire and can lead to “search frictionsâ€. The remarkable growth in online search has substantially lowered the cost of information acquisition. Despite this, there is...

We examine the evolution of the returns to human capital in Canada over the period 1980-2005. Our main finding is that returns to education increased substantially for Canadian men, contrary to conclusions reached previously. Most of this rise took place in the early 1980s and since 1995....

Separate identification of the price and quantity of human capital has important implications for understanding key issues in economics. Price and quantity series are derived for four education levels. The price series are highly correlated and they exhibit a strong secular trend. Three...

While not speaking either English or French is widely understood to be a serious barrier to employment and gainful remuneration in Canada, a study entitled “The effect of linguistic proximity on the occupational assimilation of immigrant men†(CLSRN Working Paper no. 144) by Alicia...

The earnings and occupational task requirements of immigrants to Canada are analyzed. The growing education levels of immigrants in the 1990s have not led to a large improvement in earnings as one might expect if growing computerization was leading to a rising return to non-routine cognitive...

The paper exploits the newly available Census data on the earnings of individuals in the apprenticeable trades to examine the returns to apprenticeship training. Only a small minority of males work in these trades, concentrated in the construction, production and mechanical trades where their...

This paper examines the evolution of the returns to human capital in Canada over the period 1980-2006. Most of the analysis is based on Census data, and on weekly wage and salary earnings of full-time workers. Our main finding is that the returns to education increased substantially for Canadian...

We compare predicted relative immigrant wage profiles based on returns to YSM and to foreign and host-country sources of schooling and experience. We find the biases inherent in inferring assimilation from a return to YSM appear more substantial than those emanating from the assumptions...

There is growing international interest in a Canadian-style points system for selecting economic immigrants. Although existing points systems have been influenced by the human capital literature, the findings have traditionally been incorporated in an ad hoc way. This paper explores a formal...