In analyses of labour market returns to education three competing theoretical approaches dominate the empirical research literature: education as productive skills, education as positional good, and social closure. We argue that, while these approaches might be suitable to explain the mechanisms...

This paper analyzes the allocation of workers to jobs and the wage distribution in Germany. Our main contribution is to reconcile prominent empirical models of wage dispersion (Abowd et al., 1999; Card et al., 2013) with theoretical sorting models (Shimer and Smith, 2000; Eeckhout and Kircher, 2011;...

Increasing wage inequality is associated with changes in the degree of labor market sorting, i.e. the allocation of workers to firms. To measure sorting, we propose a new method which disentangles the respective contributions of worker and firm heterogeneity to wage inequality. Inspired by...

This paper explores whether investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) and firm-sponsored training programmes are complementary. Three approaches are applied to panel data from German service companies for the time period 1994-98. Results for a system of interrelated factor...

Models with high dimensional sets of fixed effects are frequently used to examine, among others, linked employer-employee data, student outcomes and migration. Estimating these models is computationally difficult, so simplifying assumptions that are likely to cause bias are often invoked to make...

This study examines returns to tenure using Mincer wage regressions and longitudinal employer-employee payroll data from Great Britain. We find a pervasive downward bias in estimates of returns to tenure that rely solely on match fixed effects to control for unobserved factors influencing wages...

Models with high dimensional sets of fixed effects are frequently used to examine, among others, linked employer-employee data, student outcomes and migration. Estimating these models is computationally difficult, so simplifying assumptions that are likely to cause bias are often invoked to make...

It is well known that, unless worker-firm match quality is controlled for, returns to firm tenure (RTT) estimated directly via reduced form wage (Mincer) equations will be biased. In this paper we argue that even if match quality is properly controlled for there is a further pervasive source of...

Models with high dimensional sets of fixed effects are frequently used to examine, among others, linked employer-employee data, student outcomes and migration. Estimating these models is computationally difficult, so simplifying assumptions that cause bias are often invoked to make computation...