This paper uses data from the Luxembourg Income Study to explore the role of differences in supply shifts in explaining cross-national differences in the rise in earnings inequality. Changes in returns to age and education are estimated for eight countries using a common specification of...

This paper presents a new method to correct for measurement error in wage data and applies this method to address an old question: How much downward wage flexibility is there in the United States? We apply standard methods developed by Bai and Perron to identify structural breaks in time series...

Measures of inequality and mobility based on self-reported earnings reflect attributes of both the joint distribution of earnings across time and the joint distribution of measurement error and earnings. While classical measurement error would increase measures of inequality and mobility, there...

The authors examine the effect of the Medicaid program on the labor supply and welfare participation decisions of female heads of family. A key contribution is the development of a family-specific proxy for the valuation of Medicaid benefits. The authors find that Medicaid has strong and...

The authors modify the basic self-sele ction model for the effects ofeducation, training, unions, and other activities on wages, by including "heterogeneity of rewards" to the activity-i.e., diffe rences across individuals in the rate of return to the activity. The authors sho w that such...