The paper examines the optimal level of training investment when trained workers are mobile, wage contracts are time-consistent, and training comprises both specific and general skills. It is shown that, in the absence of a social planner, the firm has ex-post monopsonistic power that drives...

This paper investigates whether and to what extent demographic change has an impact on human capital accumulation. The effect of the relative cohort size on educational attainment of young adults in Germany is analyzed utilizing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for West-German...

This paper uses the retrospective work history data from the British Household Panel Survey to examine patterns of job mobility and job tenure for men and women over the twentieth century. British men and women hold an average of five jobs over their lifetimes, and one-half of all lifetime job...

In 1986, Congress attempted to reduce the incentives for unauthorized migration by eliminating U.S. employment opportunities for unauthorized workers. To recognize the commitment that many unauthorized workers had already made to the U.S. labor market, amnesty was granted to approximately 1.7...

This paper analyses the decline in unskilled employment in UK manufacturing.

We analyse a model in which a government uses a second-best policy to affect the reallocation of labour, following a change in relative prices. We consider two extreme cases, in which the government has either unlimited or negligible ability to commit to future actions. We explain why the...

How valuable are the skills acquired under socialism in a market economy? This Paper throws light on this question using unique data covering the years before and during transition (1986-98) for about 3 million Hungarian wage earners. We find that returns to a year of schooling increased by 75%...

We study the dynamics of optimal trade policy in a model with costly inter-sectoral adjustment of labour, where migrants pay less than the marginal social cost of migration. If workers have rational expectations, a future tariff has an announcement effect on the current migration decision. If...

How does the relationship between earnings and schooling change with the introduction of comprehensive economic reform? This Paper uses a unique dataset (covering about 3 million Hungarian wage earners, from 1986 to 1998) and a novel procedure to correct sample selection bias (based on DiNardo,...

This paper proposes a new measure of skills mismatch that combines information about skill proficiency, self-reported mismatch and skill use. The theoretical foundations underling this measure allow identifying minimum and maximum skill requirements for each occupation and to classify workers...