In the last two decades, the social and economic benefits of formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa have been debated. Anecdotal evidence points to low returns to education in Africa. Unfortunately, there is limited econometric evidence to support these claims at the micro level. In this study,...

Social interaction is an important vehicle of human capital acquisition and its efficiency decreases in social distance. In this paper I establish that these two premises, given the socio-cultural differences between ethnic groups, explain the puzzling evidence that (i) minorities typically earn...

How does the relationship between earnings and schooling change with the introduction of comprehensive economic reform? This paper sheds light on this question using a unique data set and procedure to reduce sample selection bias. Our evidence is from consistently coded, non-retrospective data...

In most OECD countries the wage gap between men and women has declined during the past two decades. Developments of the last 20 years, e.g. increased labour market attachment of women, changes in the bargaining structure, and the introduction of equal pay laws, may have reduced the gender wage...

We study the dispersion in rates of provincial economic- and TFP growth in China. Our results show that regional growth patterns can be understood as a function of several interrelated factors, which include investment in physical capital, human capital, and infrastructure capital; the infusion...

We use important new training information from waves 8-10 of the British Household Panel Survey to document the various forms of work-related training received by men and women over the period 1998-2000, and to estimate their impact on wages. We initially present descriptive information about...

Work of low-skilled migrant workers from developing countries in developed economies is a growing phenomenon and a key political and economic issue. An extensive literature has found (for the most part) that these workers come from the lower part of the skill distribution. This paper revisits...

In this paper we investigate when the male-female wage differential arises: Does it evolve over the early career or does it exist right from entry into first employment onwards? For the analysis we use new administrative longitudinal data and focus on the early careers of skilled workers in...

This paper considers the impact of education and training on both individual and co-worker pay and establishment performance using the matched employer-employee data in WERS 2004, the panel dataset 1998-2004 and the new Financial Performance Questionnaire. This enables us to assess the impact of...

This paper reviews Jacob Mincer’s contributions to the analyses of earnings and the distribution of earnings through his pioneering focus on labor market experience or on-the-job training. It begins with a brief discussion of the theoretical literature on the distribution of earnings in the...