A large literature has focused on estimating the returns to schooling and has typically done so by incorporating institutional heterogeneity in quality along merely one dimension (such as average SAT scores). Using longitudinal survey data of registrants for the GMAT exam and school level...

Focused on human capital, economists typically explain about half of the gender earnings gap. For a national sample of MBAs, we account for 82 percent of the gap by incorporating noncognitive skills (for example, confidence and assertiveness) and preferences regarding family, career, and jobs....

Because MBA programs require work experience before admittance, prior wages can be exploited to disentangle the return to the degree from unobserved productivity. We find that controlling for individual fixed effects generally reduces the estimated returns to an MBA, particularly for those in...

SUMMARY Economic theory suggests that income growth could lead to changes in consumption quantity and quality as the spending on a commodity changes. Similarly, the volume and quality of healthcare consumption could rise with incomes because of demographic changes, usage of innovative medical...

Using a difference-in-differences estimation framework and state-level data, we investigate the potential role of HIV/AIDS in contributing to declining abortion utilization in the United States. Our results suggest that the perceived risk of HIV contraction negatively affected unwanted...

We estimate the effects of being obese during adolescence on the likelihood of high school graduation, post-secondary educational attainment and labour market earnings as an adult (over 13 years later). We use longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add...

This paper analyzes the microeconomic sources of wage inequality in the United States from 1967-2012. Decomposing inequality into factors categorized by degree of personal responsibility, we find that education is able to explain more than twice as much of inequality today as 45 years ago....

This paper examines sorting into interracial friendships at selective universities. We show significant friendship segregation, particularly for blacks. Indeed, black friendships are no more diverse in college than in high school despite the colleges blacks attend having substantially smaller...

This paper examines sorting into interracial friendships at selective universities. We show significant friendship segregation, particularly for blacks. Indeed, blacks’ friendships are no more diverse in college than in high school, despite the fact that the colleges that blacks attend have...