This paper provides a novel microeconomic foundation for pecuniary human capital externalities in a labor market model of monopsonistic competition. Multiple equilibria arise because of a strategic complementarity in investment decisions.

Several studies show that employees with firm-specific skills are more likely to be covered by employer-sponsored pension schemes than workers with general skills. Therefore it can be expected that workers with firm-specific skills retire earlier. This paper tests this prediction using US data...

With the use of comparable data from seven West African capitals, we attempt to assess the rationale behind development policies targeting high rates of school enrolment through the prism of allocation of labour and returns to skills across the formal and informal sectors. We find that people...

We analyze the way women's education influences the effect of children on their level of labor market involvement. We propose an econometric model that accounts for the endogeneity of labor market and fertility decisions, for the heterogeneity of the effects of children and their correlation...

In this paper we report evidence on the relationship between trade openness, technology adoption and relative demand for skilled labour in the Turkish manufacturing sector, using firm-level data over the period 1980-2001. In a dynamic panel data setting using a unique database of 17,462 firms,...

We explore how umpires' racial/ethnic preferences are expressed in their evaluation of Major League Baseball pitchers. Controlling for umpire, pitcher, batter and catcher fixed effects and many other factors, strikes are more likely to be called if the umpire and pitcher match race/ethnicity....

This study examines the effect of NAFTA, an instance of North-South trade liberalization, on returns to skill in Mexico. Mexico is abundant in low-skill workers relative to the US and Canada, and so, by the Hecksher-Ohlin-Samuelson trade model, NAFTA ought to have raised the relative earnings of...

The Finnish comprehensive school reform replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and significantly reduced the degree of heterogeneity in the Finnish primary and secondary education. We estimate the effect of this reform on the test scores in the...

High- and low-wage occupations are expanding rapidly relative to middle-wage occupations in both the U.S. and the E.U. We study the reallocation of workers from middle-skill occupations towards the tails of the occupational skill distribution by analyzing changes in age structure within and...