Rural non-agricultural employment (RNAE) is being increasingly emphasized as a potential pathway out of rural poverty for people who are unable to secure their income in agriculture. Although average earnings in the rural non-agricultural sector are higher than in agriculture, it is unclear...

This paper investigates the role of skill depreciation in the relationship between work interruptions and subsequent wages. Using unique longitudinal microdata containing information on the ability to understand and practically employ printed information, we are able to analyze changes in skills...

Using a VAR model of the American economy from 1984 to 2003, we find that, contrary to official claims, the Federal Reserve does not target inflation or react to inflation signals." Rather, the Fed reacts to the very real" signal sent by unemployment, in a way that suggests that a baseless fear...

We analyze the early U.S. economic achievement of former Soviet citizens entering the United States during the period 1979 through 1985. Using the Soviet Interview project (SIP) data, we identify components of human capital acquired in the former Soviet Union (FSU), relating these to labor force...

It is well known that smoking leads to lower wages. However, the mechanism of this negative relationship is not well understood. This analysis includes a decomposition of the wage gap between smokers and nonsmokers, with a variety of definitions of smoking status designed to reflect differences...

This paper uses unique administrative data to expand the understanding of the role women's intermittency decisions play in the determination of their wages. We demonstrate that treating intermittency as exogenous significantly overstates its impact. The intermittency penalty also increases in...

We make use of predicted social and civic activities (social capital) to account for selection into "social" occupations. Individual selection accounts for more than the total difference in wages observed between social and nonsocial occupations. The role that individual social capital plays in...

Faced with easier access to foreign technology and imported capital goods, firms in India's organised manufacturing sector adopted advanced techniques of production leading to increasing automation and a rise in the capital intensity of production. This has raised much concern about the ability...

This paper analyzes the drivers of wage differences among college graduates who hold a degree in a different field of study. We focus on Turkey, an emerging country that is characterized by a sustained expansion of higher education. We estimate conditional wage gaps by field of study using OLS...

This paper documents the evolution of sector-level collective agreements in Italy and estimates the wage effects of the diffusion of non-representative agreements, often signed by unknown organisations i.e. pirate agreements. Using employer-employee data from Social Security Archives, we find...