Using micro data on women in the Czech Republic, we compare returns to various measures of human capital at the end of communism (1989), in mid-transition (1996) and in late/post-transition (2002). We show: dramatic increases in returns to education from 1989 to 1996 but no change from 1996 to 2002;...

In this paper we examine the effects of the abolition of the compulsory conscription in France on the demand for education and labour market outcomes. The reform took place in 1997 and affected all men born after 1979. Before the reform, staying on in education was a way to defer the national...

This paper considers how asymmetric tax treatment, where labour market earnings are taxed but household production is untaxed, aspects educational choice and labour supply. We show that taxes on labour market earnings can generate a large (non-marginal) switch to home production and the ensuing...

Recent studies have used quantile regression (QR) techniques to estimate the impact of education on the location, scale and shape of the conditional wage distribution. In our paper we investigate the degree to which work-related training – another important form of human capital – affects...

The Swedish adult education program known as the Knowledge Lift (1997--2002) was unprecedented in its size and scope, aiming to raise the skill level of large numbers of low-skill workers. This paper evaluates the potential effects of this program on aggregate labour market outcomes. This is...

There is a considerable empirical literature which compares wage levels of workers who have studied at secondary vocational schools with wages of workers who took academic schooling. In general, vocational education does not lead to higher wages. In some countries where labour markets are...

We use a quantile regression framework to investigate the degree to which work-related training affects the location, scale and shape of the conditional wage distribution. Human capital theory suggests that the percentage returns to training investments will be the same across the conditional...

This Paper develops a descriptive methodology for the analysis of wage growth of immigrants, based on human capital theory. The sources of the wage growth are: (i) the rise of the return to imported human capital; (ii) the impact of accumulated experience in the host country; and, (iii) the...

By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative well-being...

We propose a new test for the presence of job-market signalling in the sense of Spence (1973), based on an equation in which log-wages are explained by two endogenous variables: the student's degree and the student's time to degree, not simply by years of education. Log-wages are regressed on a...