We use data on Austrian firms and employees to estimate the effects of employer-provided training on productivity, wages, and the inequality of wages within firms. While the average amount spent on employer-provided training is low in general, we find a robust positive elasticity of training on...

This paper focuses on gender differences in the role played by locus of control within a model that predicts outcomes for men and women at two opposite poles of the labour market: high level managerial / leadership positions and unemployment. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel,...

Between 1973 and 1978, the Indonesian government engaged in one of the largest school construction programs on record. Combining differences across regions in the number of schools constructed with differences across cohorts induced by the timing of the program suggests that each primary school...

We study human capital depletion and formation in an economy open to out-migration, as opposed to an economy which is closed. Under the natural assumption of asymmetric information, the enlarged opportunities and the associated different structure of incentives can give rise to a brain gain in...

Starting a firm with expansive potential is an option for educated and high-skilled workers. This option serves as an insurance against unemployment caused by labor market frictions and hence increases the incentives for education. We show within a matching model that reducing the start-up costs...

We specify conditions under which a strictly positive probability of employment in a foreign country raises the level of human capital formed by optimizing workers in the home country. While some workers migrate, "taking along" more human capital than if they had migrated without factoring in...

We estimate selection and sorting effects on the evolution of the private return to schooling for college graduates during China’s reform between 1988 and 2002. We find evidence of substantial sorting gains under the traditional system, but gains have diminished and even become negative in the...

Increased international economic integration and skill-biased technological change are often regarded as the main drivers of the rising inequality in wages and employment witnessed in industrialized countries in recent decades as they are believed to emphasize differences between individuals in...