In this paper we assess the role of human capital misallocation in explaining cross-country income differences. To do so we build a model of human capital accumulation by heterogeneous families that differ along two dimensions: learning ability of the children and income of the parents....

Does lifecycle human capital accumulation vary across countries? If so, why? This paper seeks to answer these questions by studying U.S. immigrants, who come from a wide variety of countries but work in a common labor market. We document that returns to potential experience among U.S. immigrants...