Economists disagree about the factors driving the substantial increase in residual wage inequality in the U.S. over the past few decades. We identify and estimate a general model of log wage residuals that incorporates: (i) changing returns to unobserved skills, (ii) a changing distribution of...

Economists disagree about the factors driving the substantial increase in residual wage inequality in the U.S. over the past few decades. We identify and estimate a general model of log wage residuals that incorporates: (i) changing returns to unobserved skills, (ii) a changing distribution of...

We consider a general framework to study the evolution of wage and earnings residuals that incorporates features highlighted by two influential but distinct literatures in economics: (i) unobserved skills with changing non-linear pricing functions and (ii) idiosyncratic shocks that follow a rich...

Economists disagree about the factors driving the substantial increase in residual wage inequality in the U.S. over the past few decades. We identify and estimate a general model of log wage residuals that incorporates: (i) changing returns to unobserved skills, (ii) a changing distribution of...

Economists disagree about the factors driving the substantial increase in residual wage inequality in the U.S. over the past few decades. We identify and estimate a general model of log wage residuals that incorporates: (i) changing returns to unobserved skills, (ii) a changing distribution of...

This paper presents economic models of child development that capture the essence of recent findings from the empirical literature on skill formation. The goal of this essay is to provide a theoretical framework for interpreting the evidence from a vast empirical literature, for guiding the next...

The canonical supply-demand model of the wage returns to skill has been extremely influential; however, it has faced several important challenges. Several studies show that the standard approach sometimes produces theoretically wrong-signed elasticities of substitution, yields counterintuitive...