In the last few decades, Germany, similar to other developed countries, has been witnessing a sharp decline of the jobs that used to constitute the middle-class of the 1970s and the 1980s. This decline has been associated with the level to which jobs are codifiable. This is because, some argue,...

It has become common within the literature of skill-biased technological change to look at technologies, as well as their impact on the demand for labor as homogeneous across industries. This paper challenges this view. Using a linked employer-employee panel of Germany differentiated by...

Human capital is transferable across occupations, but only to a limited extent because of differences in occupational skill-profiles. Higher skill overlap between occupations renders less of individuals' human capital useless in occupational switches. Current occupational distance measures...

The dynamics of self-confidence are modelled in an environment where rational individuals optimally choose educations and occupations with the aim to acquire productive skills while learning about ability. It is shown how the presence of uninformative options can trap individuals below their...

Swedish elementary school children stopped receiving written end of year report cards following a grading reform in 1982. Gradual implementation of the reform creates an opportunity to investigate the effects of being graded on adult educational attainments and earnings for children in the...

A model of occupational choice and human capital investment is developed and tested. The model allows family background to influence occupational choice via access to economic resources, differences in costs of schooling, and ability uncertainty. The model predicts that people are more sensitive...

We propose a simple investment model which shows that, in the presence of fluctuations in and uncertainty about the opportunity cost of time, marginal individuals may choose to delay their education if the opportunity cost of time is temporarily high. Importantly, it is when the completion of...