Search Results

SORT BY: PREVIOUS / NEXT
Keywords:human capital 

Working Paper
The Evolution of Lifetime Hours and the Gender Wage Gap

The gender wage gap decreased (opened) from 1940 to 1975 and then increased (closed) until 2010. We use the model introduced in Ben-Porath (1967) to assess the role of gender differences in life cycle profiles of market time in explaining this dynamics. Men's profiles changed little across cohorts, but women's profiles converged to that of men implying, eventually, stronger incentives for women to accumulate human capital. We calibrate the model and find that (1) The 1940-75 decrease of the gap was because men valued human capital more than women due to their working more. The 1975-10 ...
Working Papers , Paper 2022-025

Discussion Paper
What Works at Scale? A Framework to Scale Up Workforce Development Programs

Workforce development policymakers have access to a growing catalog of training programs evaluated with rigorous randomized controlled trials. This evidence base identifies programs that work in specific geographic and temporal contexts but may not necessarily work in other contexts or at a scale sufficient to meet regional workforce needs. The author examines a sample of recent randomized controlled trials of workforce development programs and reports to what extent this body of evidence informs policymakers about what works at scale. The author finds that most programs are implemented at a ...
FRB Atlanta Community and Economic Development Discussion Paper , Paper 2019-01

Discussion Paper
College May Not Pay Off for Everyone

In our recent Current Issues article and blog post on the value of a college degree, we showed that the economic benefits of a bachelor’s degree still far outweigh the costs. However, this does not mean that college is a good investment for everyone. Our work, like the work of many others who come to a similar conclusion, is based in large part on the empirical observation that the average wages of college graduates are significantly higher than the average wages of those with only a high school diploma. However, not all college students come from Lake Wobegon, where “all of the children ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20140904b

Discussion Paper
Benefits Cliffs as a Barrier to Career Advancement for Low-Income Adults: Insights from Employment Services Providers

How do employment service providers explain benefits cliffs to clients who want to advance in their careers? To answer this question, the authors conducted three focus groups with a range of employment service providers. Focus group participants report that counselors and clients struggle to manage benefits loss because of a lack of clarity on program rules and difficulty finding appropriate jobs that pay enough to outweigh the loss of benefits. When advising clients about career advancement, counselors use a range of intake processes to determine clients’ immediate needs and assess their ...
FRB Atlanta Community and Economic Development Discussion Paper , Paper 2020-02

Working Paper
The Baby Boomers and the Productivity Slowdown

The entry of baby boomers into the labor market in the 1970s slowed growth for physical and human capital per worker because young workers have little of both. Thus, the baby boom could have contributed to the 1970s productivity slowdown. I build and calibrate a model a la Huggett et al. (2011) with exogenous population and TFP to evaluate this theory. The baby boom accounts for 75% of the slowdown in the period 1964-69, 25% in 1970-74 and 2% in 1975-79. The retiring of baby boomers may cause a 2.8pp decline in productivity growth between 2020 and 2040, ceteris paribus.
Working Papers , Paper 2018-37

Report
Human capital investments and expectations about career and family

This paper studies how individuals believe human capital investments will affect their future career and family life. We conducted a survey of high-ability currently enrolled college students and elicited beliefs about how their choice of college major, and whether to complete their degree at all, would affect a wide array of future events, including future earnings, employment, marriage prospects, potential spousal characteristics, and fertility. We find that students perceive large ?returns" to human capital not only in their own future earnings, but also in a number of other dimensions ...
Staff Reports , Paper 792

Report
Human capital and economic activity in urban America

We examine the relationship between human capital and economic activity in U.S. metropolitan areas, extending the literature in two ways. First, we utilize new data on metropolitan area GDP to measure economic activity. Results show that a one-percentage-point increase in the proportion of residents with a college degree is associated with about a 2 percent increase in metropolitan area GDP per capita. Second, we develop measures of human capital that reflect the types of knowledge within U.S. metropolitan areas. Regional knowledge stocks related to the provision of producer services and ...
Staff Reports , Paper 332

Working Paper
Lifetime Work Hours and the Evolution of the Gender Wage Gap

The gender wage gap expanded between 1940 and 1975 but narrowed sharply between 1980 and 1995. We use a human capital accumulation model introduced in Ben-Porath (1967) to assess the role of gender differences in life-cycle profiles of market time and occupation sorting in explaining the gender wage gap dynamics over the long run. Men’s aggregate hours profiles changed little across cohorts, but women’s profiles converged to those of men, and especially so in higher-paying occupations. We calibrate the model to wage data by age, year, gender and occupation, and find that changing time ...
Working Papers , Paper 2022-025

Why Human Capital Matters Why Human Capital Matters

An economist at the St. Louis Fed discusses the growing importance of human capital in determining a nation’s income.
On the Economy

Report
Tuition, Debt, and Human Capital

This paper investigates the effects of college tuition on student debt and human capital accumulation. We exploit data from a random sample of undergraduate students in the United States and implement a research design that instruments for tuition with relatively large changes to the tuition of students who enrolled at the same school in different cohorts. We find that $10,000 in higher tuition causally reduces the probability of graduating with a graduate degree by 6.2 percentage points and increases student debt by $2,961. Higher tuition also reduces the probability of obtaining an ...
Staff Reports , Paper 912

FILTER BY year

FILTER BY Content Type

FILTER BY Author

Leukhina, Oksana 10 items

Abel, Jaison R. 9 items

Deitz, Richard 7 items

Ruder, Alexander 7 items

Hendricks, Lutz 6 items

Koreshkova, Tatyana 6 items

show more (73)

FILTER BY Jel Classification

J24 45 items

J31 19 items

E24 16 items

I23 7 items

I26 6 items

J08 6 items

show more (78)

FILTER BY Keywords

inequality 9 items

skills 7 items

college quality 6 items

returns to education 6 items

college wage premium 5 items

show more (166)

PREVIOUS / NEXT