This paper presents and estimates a unified model where both human capital investment and job search are endogenized. This unification enables us to quantify the relative contributions of each mechanism to life cycle earnings growth, while investigating potential interactions between human...

We study the self-employed decision and its relation to human and social capital. Human capital is necessary to acquire skills. Social capital dampens the effects of uncertainty about future income. Our data set consists of 1339 respondents from the same age group, who were interviewed three...

A non-trivial portion of traffic fatalities involve alcohol or illicit drugs. But does the use of alcohol and illegal substances - which is linked to depression, suicide, and criminal activity - also reduce academic performance? Recent studies suggest that drinking alcohol has a negative, if...

Despite the high growth of the Peruvian economy during the last decade, college graduates are facing increasing difficulties to find occupations that match their higher educational background, skills and educational investments. This scenario is embodied in the "professional underemployment"...

Workers participating in firm-sponsored training receive higher wages as a result. But given that firms pay the majority of costs for training, shouldn't they also benefit? Empirical evidence shows that this is in fact the case. Firm-sponsored training leads to higher productivity levels and...

As Switzerland experiences a severe shortage of nurses, this paper investigates the impact of students' ex ante wage expectations on their choice to pursue a nursing college education. This analysis contributes to a small yet rapidly developing body of literature that uses subjective expectation...