This paper uncovers evidence on the distribution of wages in Belarus in the second half of the 1990s. The returns to education and work experience are high and stable, which is atypical for a transition country. This might be due to the pervasive role of the state in fixing wages in the dominant...

This paper develops a multi-period model, in which workers are matched with jobs according to imperfect educational signals and in which their subsequent productivities depend on both their inherent ability and on the quality of the job match. It outlines a sequential process, in which underpaid...

Previous empirical specifications are not flexible enough to capture the true pattern of sheepskin effects over time. If the quality of the match between the worker and the job contributes to earnings and if higher ability workers more easily reveal their true productivity, sheepskin effects...

In this paper, we exploit an exogenous change in the passing standard required to obtain a General Educational Development (GED) credential to identify the impact of the GED on the quarterly earnings of male dropouts, utilizing the Texas Schools Micro Data Panel (TSMP). These unique data contain...

The Swedish adult education program known as the Knowledge Lift is unprecedented in its size and scope, aiming to raise the skill level of all low-skilled workers towards the medium level. This paper evaluates the effects of program participation on individual labor market outcomes, notably...

We estimate a Dynamic Programming model of the decision between continuing schooling or entering the labor market using a panel from the National Longitudinal Survey (NLSY). The model, set in an expected utility framework (with a power utility function), fits data on both schooling attainments...

Using a dynamic programming model of schooling decisions, we investigate the relationship between subjective discount rates and the labor market ability (the discount rate bias) on a panel taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Given household human capital and Armed Forces...

We address the impact of education upon wage inequality by drawing on evidence from fifteen European countries, during a period ranging between 1980 and 1995. We focus on within-educational-levels wage inequality by estimating quantile regressions of Mincer equations and analysing the...

This paper utilizes the self-employed to analyze the observed increase in the educational earnings premium in the 1980?s. The paper compares the predictions of the signaling and human capital models in response to an exogenous demand shock such as a skill-biased technological change. Since the...

Individual absolute risk aversion is measured for a sample of 1373 male household heads, using the 1995 wave of the Survey on the Income and Wealth of Italian households. This measure, conditional on financial and real wealth and household income, is used as an instrument for attained education...