Observing the current wage at a job may not fully reflect the value of that job. For example, a job with a low starting wage may be preferred to a high starting wage job if the growth rate of wages in the former exceeds the latter. In fact, differences in wage growth can potentially explain why...

We document empirical life cycle profiles of wages, earnings, and hours of work for pay from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, following the same workers for up to four decades. For six of the eight cohorts we analyze the wage profile does not decline with age (not before 65, at least), while...