I use the American Community Survey to examine how college earnings premiums differ across small metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the U.S. I document that the West North Central Division (Plains Region) has especially low average college earnings premiums. Controlling for observable MSA...

Fracking innovations revolutionized the United States oil and gas industry and facilitated a boom in energy production in states with oil and gas resources. This paper examines effects of oil and gas booms within a state on individual employment and earnings. To account for endogenous migration...

This paper examines trends in the college wage premium (CWP) by birth cohort across the five major household surveys in the United States: the Census/ACS, CPS, NLSY, PSID, and SIPP. We document a flattening in the CWP for birth cohorts 1978 and onward in each survey and even a decline for birth...

Earnings inequality declined rapidly in Argentina, Brazil and Chile during the 2000s. A reduction in the experience premium is a fundamental driver of declines in upper-tail (90/50) inequality, while a decline in the education premium is the primary determinant of the evolution of lower-tail...

We use census-like data and a regression discontinuity design to study the labor market impacts of a signal provided by a government-sponsored award given to top-performing students on a nationwide college exit exam in Colombia. Students who can signal their high level of specific skills earn...

Expected earnings and expected returns to education are seen by labor economists as a major determinant of educational attainment. In spite of this, the empirical knowledge about expectations and their formation is scarce. In this paper we report the results of the first systematic study of the...

This paper concerns the prediction of career success among migrants. We focus specifically on the role of occupation as a mediating variable between the predictor variables education and time since migration, and the dependent variable career success as denoted by occupational status, linked to...

Skills shortages and skill mismatch are a pressing concern for policymakers in several developing countries, and in East Asia specifically. Providing on-the-job training can be an effective policy tool to shape the skills of the existent workforce to the specific needs of the firms. This paper...

This paper examines changes in the wage structure in urban India during the past two decades (1983-2004) across the entire wage distribution using the Machado and Mata (2005) decomposition approach. Real wages increased throughout the wage distribution during 1983-1993; however, it increased only in...

This paper analyses the determinants and consequences of horizontal job-education mismatches, an increasingly relevant topic in debates about education and labour markets. This issue reflects the articulation of educational fields and occupations in the labour market. We evaluate the...