Most studies of union formation focus on short-term probabilities of marrying, cohabiting, or divorcing in the next year. In this study, we take a long-term perspective by considering joint probabilities of marrying or cohabiting by certain ages and maintaining the unions for at least 8, 12, or...

We demonstrate that empirical evidence of employer learning is sensitive to how we define the career start date and, in turn, measure cumulative work experience. Arcidiacono et al. (2010) find evidence of employer learning for high school graduates but not for college graduates, and conclude...

We extend the fixed effects maximum likelihood estimator to a proportional hazard model with a flexibly parametric baseline hazard. We use the method to estimate a job duration model for young men, and show that failure to account for unobserved fixed effect causes negative schooling and union...

This study identifies the effects of economic factors that can be directly manipulated by public policy on women’s union-forming decisions. We jointly model transitions made by never-married women to cohabitation or marriage, cohabiting women to marriage or separation, and married women to...

In this study, we ask whether economic factors that can be directly manipulated by public policy have important effects on the probability that women experience long-lasting unions. Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we estimate a fivestage sequential choice model...

Given that divorce often represents a high-stakes income gamble, we ask how individual levels of risk tolerance affect the decision to divorce. We extend the orthodox divorce model by assuming individuals are risk averse, marriage is risky, and divorce is even riskier. The model predicts that...

We ask whether the role of employer learning in the wage-setting process depends on skill type and skill importance to productivity. Combining data from the NLSY79 with O*NET data, we use Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery scores to measure seven distinct types of pre-market skills that...