In recent years there has been a plethora of empirical papers by economists concerning the effects of academic rank in school or college on subsequent outcomes of students. We review this recent literature, describing the difficult identification and measurement issues, the assumptions and...

Many interesting and important economic questions relate to the e§ects of binary treatments such as starting a college degree or participating in a job training program. The causal e§ects of these treatments are likely to be heterogeneous and recent research has emphasized the estimation of...

We use administrative data from Ireland to study differences in college application behaviour between students from disadvantaged versus advantaged high schools. Ireland provides an interesting laboratory for this analysis as applicants provide a preference-ordering of college programs (majors)...

Much research has shown that having a better class of degree has a significant payoff in the labour market. Using administrative data from Ireland, we explore the performance in college of different types of students. We find that post-primary school achievement is an important predictor: Its...

Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the author examines the cyclicality of wages within employer-employee matches for the years 1970-91. Recent research on wage cyclicality has suggested that wages are very procyclical (tending to rise and fall with economic upturns and...

The author uses longitudinal data to study the effects of industry growth and decline on wage changes between 1976 and 2001. He finds that over this period, workers who were initially in industries that subsequently expanded enjoyed faster wage growth than other workers. Moreover, wage growth...

Using the British New Earnings Survey Panel Data for 1975–2001, the authors estimate the wage cyclicality (the degree to which wage levels rise and fall with economic upturns and downturns) of three groups: job stayers, within-company job movers, and between-company job movers. Wages of...

The author uses longitudinal data to study the effects of industry growth and decline on wage changes between 1976 and 2001. He finds that over this period, workers who were initially in industries that subsequently expanded enjoyed faster wage growth than other workers. Moreover, wage growth...

Given the high level of job mobility in the United States, one might think that obtaining a low-paying job would have only temporary consequences. However, using longitudinal data, I find that state dependence in wages is large and persistent. If two comparable individuals start jobs that pay a...