The tertiary-secondary (college-high school) wage premium has been increasing in India over the past decade, but the increase differs across age groups. The increase in wage premium has been driven mostly by younger age groups, while older age groups have not experienced any significant...

This paper develops and tests a new model of asymmetric information in the labour market involving employer learning. In the model, I provide theoretical conditions for the identification – based on the experience and tenure profiles of estimated returns to ability and education – of...

Public funding drives much of the recent growth of college degree supply in Europe, but few indicators are available to assess its optimal level. In this paper, we investigate an indicator of college skills usage - the fraction of college graduates employed in "college" occupations. Gottschalk...

Based on a large data set containing information on occupations between 1979 and 1999, this study explores the ?black box? surrounding the skill?biased technological change hypothesis by analyzing the mechanisms that induce information technologies to be complementary to employees with higher...

This paper proposes a new method to estimate the extent of job competition between workers with different schooling levels. We estimate the structural parameters of a matching function generalised to incorporate crowding out effects. We use flow data out of unemployment containing information on...

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the level of ability. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the return to schooling is lower for...

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether education and ability are substitutes or complements in the determination of earnings. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the...

Building on a new data set which is combined from national micro-data bases, we highlight differences in the structure of migrants to four countries, viz. France, Germany, the UK and the US, which receive a substantial share of all immigrants to the OECD world. Looking at immigrants by source...

The large increase in computer use has raised the question whether people have to be taught computer skills before entering the labour market. Using data from the 1997 Skills Survey of the Employed British Workforce, we argue that neither the increase in computer use nor the fact that...

This paper examines whether more informative job promotions carry larger wage increases. In job assignment models with asymmetric information, unexpected promotions send a signal to the external labor market to revise upward their assessment of a worker's ability. The employing firm must then...