According to T.W. Schultz, the returns to human capital are highest in economic environments experiencing unexpected price, productivity, and technology shocks that create "disequilibria." In such environments, the ability of firms and individuals to adapt their resource allocations to shocks...

Rates of return to investments in schooling have been estimated since the late 1950s. In the 60-plus year history of such estimates, there have been several attempts to synthesize the empirical results to ascertain patterns. This paper presents comparable estimates, as well as a database, that...

This paper presents estimations of the shadow economies for 162 countries, including developing, Eastern European, Central Asian, and high-income countries over the period 1999 to 2006/2007. According to the estimations, the weighted average size of the shadow economy (as a percentage of...

This paper compares the wages of workers inside the United States to the wages of observably identical workers outside the United States-controlling for country of birth, country of education, years of education, work experience, sex, and rural-urban residence. This is made possible by new and...

This paper uses a new standardized micro database for a large set of developing countries to (1) describe the patterns of labor market outcomes for youth, and (2) explain the contributions of supply and demand factors to youth outcomes. The paper shows that youth face various difficulties in...

Data from 919 household surveys conducted between 1960 and 2012, spanning 147 economies, are used to evaluate the relationship between rising life expectancy at birth and lifetime years of schooling for successive birth cohorts between 1905 and 1988. The study finds significant positive effects...