One competitive-market explanation of interindustry wage differentials that is not challenged by the persistence of these differentials is that they are due to differences across workers in unobserved ability or quality. In contrast, this paper explores the unobserved ability hypothesis by using...

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 indicate that between 1996 and 2010 females on average lost some of the promotion momentum they had achieved at the beginning of mid-career, although they outperformed males in this regard. For both genders economic downturn has...

Contrary to recent criticism, the standard production function test can, in principle, reveal whether or not unionized workers or firms are more productive than their nonunion counterparts. In the long run, however, the forces of competition foreordain the result.