Profitable Career Paths: Accumulated Skills in Work, Their Degree of Transferability and Wage Premia

In this paper we challenge the conventional assumption that accumulated human capital can be divided into employer-specific and general labour market skills and explore the possibility of industry and occupational specificity. The estimates of a Mincer wage equation, on a BHPS sample, suggest some interesting patterns. Occupational expertise, so far overlooked in the literature, appears to play a major role on workersÕ earnings profiles. Antithetically, the evidence on industry experience is limited and in some cases mixed. Furthermore, the estimated occupational effect is actually driven by some particular occupations, implying that expertise is important only in these specific career paths.