In this paper we use a newly constructed dataset following 30,000 Italian individuals from high school to labor market and we analyze whether the gender composition of peers in high school affected their choice of college major, their academic performance and their labor market income. We...

Using an originally constructed dataset that follows 30,000 Italian individuals from high school to the labor market, we analyze whether the gender composition of peers in high school affected their choice of college major, their academic performance and their labor market income. We exploit the...

We bring together the strands of literature on the returns to education, its spillovers, and the role of the employer shaping the wage distribution. The aim is to analyze the labor market returns to education taking into account who the worker is (worker unobserved ability), what he does (the...

We study how the tasks conducted on the job relate to measures of cognitive skills using data from 18 countries participating in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) and from 13 countries that also participate in the International Adult Literacy Study...

This paper quantifies the extent to which basic skills matter for young dropouts entering today's labor market. Estimates indicate that for dropouts who were age 16-18 when they took a high stakes test in the late 1990s, a standard deviation increase in scores is associated with earnings that...

Unlike labor income, human capital is inseparable from individuals and does not accrue to creditors at default. As a consequence, human capital investment should be more resilient to “debt overhang” than labor supply. We develop a dynamic model displaying this important difference. We find...

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...

In this paper we evaluate the impact of a major school reform, that took place in the 1950s in Sweden, on educational attainment and earnings. The reform, which has many common elements with reforms in other European countries including the UK, consisted of increasing compulsor schooling,...

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...