Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to improve our understanding of why some firms tie compensation to worker performance as well as the variation in type of performance pay system across firms. Design/methodology/approach – The study first presents a theoretical framework that motivates...

The national Norwegian school reform of 1994, which gave students statutory rights to at least 3 years of upper secondary education, had a significant impact on educational attainment among immigrant youth. In particular, we find that the immigrant transition rate from compulsory schooling to...

Evidence on the effectiveness of school inputs remains inconclusive, partly due to the challenge of identification as families sort themselves into school districts and resources are potentially allocated to compensate (or reinforce) differences in pupil abilities. Using variation in school...

Life cycle wages of immigrants from developing countries fall short of catching up with wages of natives. Using linked employer–employee data, we show that 40% of the native–immigrant wage gap is explained by differential sorting across establishments. We find that returns to experience and...

We estimate the direct partial wage effects of immigrant-induced increases in labor supply, using the national skill cell approach with longitudinal records drawn from Norwegian administrative registers. The results show overall negative but heterogeneous wage effects, with larger effects on...

We present comparable evidence on intergenerational earnings mobility for Denmark, Finland, Norway, the UK and the US, with a focus on the role of gender and marital status. We confirm that earnings mobility in the Nordic countries is typically greater than in the US and in the UK, but find...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to improve our understanding of why some firms tie compensation to worker performance as well as the variation in type of performance pay system across firms. Design/methodology/approach – The study first presents a theoretical framework that motivates...