Using recent results in the measurement error literature, we show that the official U.S. unemployment rates substantially underestimate the true levels of unemployment, due to misclassification errors in labor force status in Current Population Surveys. Our closed-form identification of the...

While there is considerable interest in understanding the climate-migration relationship, particularly in the context of concerns about global climatic change, little is known about underlying mechanisms. We analyze a unique and extensive set of panel data characterizing annual bilateral...

A significant proportion of migrant children in China are not able to attend public schools for lack of local household registration (HuKou), and turn to privately-operated migrant schools. This paper examines the consequences of such a partially involuntary school choice, using survey data and...

The March Current Population Survey (CPS) is the primary data source for estimation of levels and trends in labor earnings and income inequality in the USA. Time-inconsistency problems related to top coding in theses data have led many researchers to use the ratio of the 90th and 10th...

We study a competitive labor market with imperfect information. In our basic model, the labor market consists of heterogeneous workers and ex ante identical firms who have only imperfect private information about workers' productivities. Firms compete by posting wages in order to cherry-pick...

Using nationally representative data in China, we find substantial positive partial correlations of both parents' education with one's wage. In addition, returns to father's education are higher in more monopsonistic and less meritocratic labor markets, including non-coastal regions, the...

The paper reexamines the employer size-wage puzzle using NLSY79 data. The empirical results show that even for those who never receive any training from their employers, size-wage premium still exists and is quantitatively important. Wage increases associated with receiving on-the-job training...

To measure income inequality with right censored (topcoded) data, we propose multiple imputation for censored observations using draws from Generalized Beta of the Second Kind distributions to provide partially synthetic datasets analyzed using complete data methods. Estimation and inference...

Displaced workers, especially long tenured workers, face large human capital losses. Private firms frequently offer insurance against this threat in the form of severance pay – scheduled benefits linked in expectation to the worker’s human capital loss. We explore this linkage, first...

Using internal and public use March Current Population Survey data, we analyze trends in US income inequality (1975–2004). Using a multiple imputation approach where values for censored observations are imputed using draws from a Generalized Beta distribution of the Second Kind, we find that...