We develop a theory that focuses on the general equilibrium and long-run macroeconomic consequences of trends in job utility. Given secular increases in job utility, work hours per capita can remain approximately constant over time even if the income effect of higher wages on labor supply...

The private market for student loans has become an important source of college financing in the United States. Unlike government student loans, the terms on student loans in the private market are based on credit status. We quantify the importance of the private market for student loans and of...

This paper uses the NLSY to examine (1) the returns to two-year college, (2) whether attendance at a two-year college helps students to transfer to four-year college, and (3) whether reducing tuition would alter attendance enough to affect labor outcomes. I find that the returns to a year of...

Despite the long economic expansion, employment among young men is lower today than it was in the late 1960s. This decline has been largely driven by a 17 percentage point reduction in the proportion of high school dropouts working even a single week per year. One common explanation for this...

Models featuring increasing returns to scale in at least one factor of production have been used to study two separate phenomena: (1) multiplicity of self-fulfilling rational expectations equilibria (i.e. sunspots), and (2) production schedules that optimally feature bunching. We show in a...

This paper uses individual responses from the Michigan SRC survey of consumer attitudes to examine worker anxiety. It identifies "anxious" households (those that express some concern about job security) and analyzes some factors that might be driving this angst. It found that a little more than...

The probability that an individual participates in the labor force declines precipitously beyond age 50. This feature of labor supply suggests that ongoing shifts in the age distribution of the population will put substantial downward pressure on the aggregate labor force participation rate....