The paper analyzes the effect of human-capital investments of heterogeneous individuals on the dynamics of the wage structure within a neoclassical growth model. The accumulation of physical capital changes relative factor prices and thus incentives to acquire skills, thereby altering the...

The initial earnings of U.S. immigrants vary enormously by country of origin. Via three interrelated analyses, we show earnings convergence across source countries with time in the United States. Human-capital theory plausibly explains the inverse relationship between initial earnings and...

Immigrants who start with low earnings, such as family-based immigrants, experience higher earnings growth than immigrants who are recruited for specific jobs (employment-based immigrants). This occurs because family-based immigrants with lower initial earnings invest in human capital at higher...

This paper answers the following two questions: 1) In the data, can we find a dilution effect of population growth also on per-capita human capital investment? If yes, 2) how can we use this fact to explain theoretically the existence of a differential impact of population change on economic...

Motivations to participate in the labour market as well as to invest in labour market skills are crucial for the successful integration of refugees. In this paper we use a unique dataset - the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Refugee Survey, which is a representative longitudinal study of all refugees reported on...

Remittances from overseas can encourage human capital investment and improve educational outcomes in developing countries. Empirical studies, however, have shown mixed evidence at best. This paper uses a 5-year panel dataset that tracks the same 3,000 households and 8,000 individuals through...