Several recent studies use the schooling and wage variation between monozygotic twins to estimate the return to schooling. In this paper, we summarize the results from this literature, and we examine the implications of endogenous determination of which twin goes to school longer and of...

Several recent studies use the schooling and wage variation between monozygotic twins to estimate the return to schooling. In this paper, we summarize the results from this literature, and we examine the implications of endogenous determination of which twin goes to school longer and of...

Existing theoretical models of intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status have strong implications for the association of outcomes across multiple generations of a family. These models, however, are highly stylized and do not encompass many plausible avenues for transmission across...

The purpose of this paper is to help empirical economists think through when and how to weight the data used in estimation. We start by distinguishing two purposes of estimation: to estimate population descriptive statistics and to estimate causal effects. In the former type of research,...

Using 1979-2011 Current Population Survey data for the United States and 1975-2011 New Earnings Survey data for Great Britain, we study wage behavior in both countries, with particular attention to the Great Recession. Real wages are procyclical in both countries, but the procyclicality of real...

In the most thorough study to date on wage cyclicality among job stayers, Devereux%u2019s (2001) analysis of men in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics produced two puzzling findings: (1) the real wages of salaried workers are noncyclical, and (2) wage cyclicality among hourly workers differs...

Previous studies of recent U.S. trends in intergenerational income mobility have produced widely varying results, partly because of large sampling errors. By making more efficient use of the available information in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we generate more reliable estimates of the...

One of the strongest trends in recent macroeconomic modeling of labor market fluctuations is to treat unemployment inflows as acyclical. This trend stems in large part from an influential paper by Shimer on "Reassessing the Ins and Outs of Unemployment," i.e., the extent to which increased...

This study uses an extraordinary Swedish data set to explore the sources of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status. Merging data from administrative sources and censuses, we investigate the association between sons' and daughters' socioeconomic outcomes and those of their...