This paper re-examines the impact of city educational composition on wages, often interpreted as human capital externalities. Using U.S. Census data, I find large, positive spillovers from college education in the 1980s, as documented by Moretti (2004a). In contrast, in the 1990s, the supply of...

We argue that when immigrant earnings are considered in the context of post-arrival human capital investment: cohort quality should be defined in terms of the present value of the whole earnings profile; and, an appropriate definition of “macro” effects is obtained using the earnings profile...

We study the relationship between age and literacy skills in Canada, Norway and the U.S. — countries that represent a wide range of literacy outcomes — using data from the 1994 and 2003 International Adult Literacy Surveys. In cross-sectional data there is a weak negative partial...