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Source: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Resulting in 7 citations.
1. Arcidiacono, Peter
Bayer, Patrick
Hizmo, Aurel
Beyond Signaling and Human Capital: Education and the Revelation of Ability
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2,4 (October 2010): 76-104.
Also: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.2.4.76
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); College Enrollment; Discrimination, Employer; High School Completion/Graduates; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Racial Differences; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Wages

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In traditional signaling models, education provides a way for individuals to sort themselves by ability. Employers in turn use education to statistically discriminate, paying wages that reflect the average productivity of workers with the same given level of education. In this paper, we provide evidence that education (specifically, attending college) plays a much more direct role in revealing ability to the labor market. Using the NLSY79, our results suggest that ability is observed nearly perfectly for college graduates. In contrast, returns to AFQT for high school graduates are initially very close to zero and rise steeply with experience. As a result, from very beginning of the career, college graduates are paid in accordance with their own ability, while the wages of high school graduates are initially completely unrelated to their own ability. This view of ability revelation in the labor market has considerable power in explaining racial differences in wages, education, and the returns to ability. In particular, we find no racial differences in wages or returns to ability in the college labor market, but a 6-10 percent wage penalty for blacks (conditional on ability) in the high school market. These results are consistent with the notion that employers use race to statistically discriminate in the high school market but have no need to do so in the college market.
Bibliography Citation
Arcidiacono, Peter, Patrick Bayer and Aurel Hizmo. "Beyond Signaling and Human Capital: Education and the Revelation of Ability." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2,4 (October 2010): 76-104.
2. Bailey, Martha J.
Hershbein, Brad
Miller, Amalia Rebecca
The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 4,3 (July 2012): 225-254.
Also: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.4.3.225&fnd=s
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Contraception; Gender Differences; Human Capital; Life Cycle Research; Wage Gap; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Decades of research on the US gender gap in wages describes its correlates, but little is known about why women changed their career paths in the 1960s and 1970s. This paper explores the role of "the Pill" in altering women's human capital investments and its ultimate implications for life-cycle wages. Using state-by-birthcohort variation in legal access, we show that younger access to the Pill conferred an 8 percent hourly wage premium by age 50. Our estimates imply that the Pill can account for 10 percent of the convergence of the gender gap in the 1980s and 30 percent in the 1990s. (JEL J13, J16, J31, J71, J24)
Bibliography Citation
Bailey, Martha J., Brad Hershbein and Amalia Rebecca Miller. "The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 4,3 (July 2012): 225-254.
3. Black, Dan A.
Sanders, Seth G.
Schofield, Lynne Steuerle
Taylor, Lowell J.
Regional Differences in the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality: Evidence from the NLSY
Presented: Atlanta GA, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2019
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Cognitive Ability; Geocoded Data; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility; Noncognitive Skills; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In a series of important papers (e.g., Chetty et al., 2014, and Chetty et al., forthcoming), Raj Chetty and coauthors show that there is substantial variation in the geography of intergenerational mobility; children born to parents with moderate income are more upwardly mobile in some places than in others. Chetty and Hendren ascribe a casual role to place‐based factors. In this paper we seek to understand the mechanisms behind this phenomenon by studying intergenerational links in cognitive and non‐cognitive ability--using data elements from mothers in the NLSY79 and their children in the NLSY79‐Child. There are two innovations in our study. First, in analyzing parent‐child links in cognition, we use item response level data collected for the purpose of constructing latent variables (the AFQT, PIAT, etc.), as in Junker et al. (2015). Second, we employ restricted‐use data elements to identify geography, matched to statistics constructed from Census data, and from the data files posted by the "Equality of Opportunity Project" team (Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and colleagues). The goal is to see if the place‐based upward mobility documented in the work in Chetty and coauthors is driven in part by improved "upward mobility" across generations in cognitive and non‐cognitive ability.
Bibliography Citation
Black, Dan A., Seth G. Sanders, Lynne Steuerle Schofield and Lowell J. Taylor. "Regional Differences in the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality: Evidence from the NLSY." Presented: Atlanta GA, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2019.
4. Davis, Jonathan
Mazumder, Bhashkar
The Decline in Intergenerational Mobility After 1980
Presented: Chicago IL, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2017
Cohort(s): Mature Women, NLSY79, Older Men, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Family Income; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility, Economic

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We present new evidence using National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) which shows a sharp decline in intergenerational mobility across cohorts born between 1942 and 1953 compared to those born between 1957 and 1964. The former entered the labor market prior to the large rise in inequality that occurred around 1980 while the latter cohorts entered the labor market largely after this inflection point in inequality. We show that the rank-rank slope rose from 0.27 to 0.4 and the IGE rose from 0.35 to 0.52 across these two cohort groups. The share of children whose income exceeds that of their parents fell by about 4 percentage points. These findings suggest that relative mobility fell by substantially more than absolute mobility.
Bibliography Citation
Davis, Jonathan and Bhashkar Mazumder. "The Decline in Intergenerational Mobility After 1980." Presented: Chicago IL, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2017.
5. Deming, David
Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1,3 (July 2009): 111-134.
Also: http://www.atypon-link.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/AEAP/doi/pdf/10.1257/app.1.3.111
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Care; Children, Preschool; Family Income; Grade Retention/Repeat Grade; Head Start; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Mothers, Education; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Poverty; Siblings; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Variables, Independent - Covariate; Wage Effects; Wages, Youth; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper provides new evidence on the long-term benefits of Head Start using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. I compare siblings who differ in their participation in the program, controlling for a variety of pre-treatment covariates. I estimate that Head Start participants gain 0.23 standard deviations on a summary index of young adult outcomes. This closes one-third of the gap between children with median and bottom quartile family income, and is about 80 percent as large as model programs such as Perry Preschool. The long-term impact for disadvantaged children is large despite "fadeout" of test score gains.
Bibliography Citation
Deming, David. "Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1,3 (July 2009): 111-134.
6. Kahn, Lisa B.
Asymmetric Information between Employers
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5,4 (October 2013): 165-205.
Also: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.5.4.165&fnd=s
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Firms; Learning, Asymmetric; Skills; Workers Ability

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study explores whether potential employers have the same information about worker ability as the incumbent firm. I develop a model of asymmetric learning that nests the symmetric learning case and allows the degree of asymmetry to vary. I then show how predictions in the model can be tested with compensation data. Using the NLSY, I test the model and find strong support for asymmetric information. My estimates imply that in one period, outside firms reduce the average expectation error over worker ability by only a third of the reduction made by incumbent firms.
Bibliography Citation
Kahn, Lisa B. "Asymmetric Information between Employers." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5,4 (October 2013): 165-205.
7. Mendez, Fabio
Sepulveda, Facundo
The Cyclicality of Skill Acquisition: Evidence from Panel Data
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 4,3 (July 2012): 128-152.
Also: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mac.4.3.128
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Education; Employment; Skill Formation; Skills; Training

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper presents new empirical evidence regarding the cyclicality of skill acquisition activities. The paper studies both training and schooling episodes at the individual level using quarterly data from the NLSY79 for a period of 19 years. We find that aggregate schooling is strongly countercyclical, while aggregate training is acyclical. Several training categories, however, behave procyclically. The results also indicate that firm-financed training is procyclical, while training financed through other means is countercyclical; and that the cyclicality of skill acquisition investments depends significantly on the educational level and the employment status of the individual. (JEL E24, E32, I20, J24)
Bibliography Citation
Mendez, Fabio and Facundo Sepulveda. "The Cyclicality of Skill Acquisition: Evidence from Panel Data ." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 4,3 (July 2012): 128-152.