racial earnings disparities and family structure one explanation for the widening of racial earnings gaps among family heads during the 1980s is that black families were increasingly headed by females during that period this explanation is tested using data on black and white family heads in 1976 and 1985 from the institute for research on poverty s current population survey log earnings equations corrected for selection bias and for the endogeneity of labor force participation are estimated for blacks and whites in 1976 and 1985 if the impact of rising female family headship on labor force participation is ignored one finds support for the family structure explanation but support for alternative explanations is also found there are substantial impacts of within race gender discrimination and of market racial discrimination when the endogeneity of family structure is taken into account further support is found for the view that endowment differences only explain a modest portion of the rising gap in earnings between black and white family heads

the effect of family background on children s level of schooling attainment in spain this paper provides microeconomic estimates of the role played by family background in determining children s level of schooling attainment in spain we use an ordered logit model to explore the effects of family background and other supply factors on the probability of various educational outcomes our estimates are based on household data obtained from the ecvt living and working conditions survey ministerio de economia y hacienda 1985 a spanish nation wide household survey conducted at the end of 1985 in general and given the spanish capital constraints parental income social class and family size explain children s level of schooling these results are consistent with those of the literature that focuses on the role of family background in determining schooling attainment

budget constrained frontier measures of fiscal equality and efficiency in schooling equality and efficiency are key issues in educational reform here the authors analyze the efficiency and equality consequences of various school finance reforms using a cost indirect output distance function this function readily models multiple output production under conditions of budgetary constraint and provides a natural measure of performance that is closely related to farrell type measures of efficiency the analysis suggests that despite school district inefficiency finance reforms can affect student achievement however any potential gains in output from redistribution are dwarfed by the potential gains from increased efficiency more strikingly the analysis demonstrates that budgetary reforms designed to equalize expenditures could actually increase the inequality of student achievement

child labor and the labor supply of other household members evidence from 1920 america this paper analyses the effect of child labor on household labor supply using 1920 us census micro data the aim of the analysis is to understand who in the household benefits from child labor in order to identify a source of exogenous variation in child labor i use state specific child labor laws i find that a rise in the proportion of working children by household is associated with no variation in parents labor supply i also find a strong negative externality among children as the proportion of working children by household rises everything else equal the probability that each child works falls while the probability that he attends school rises this suggests that parents redistribute entirely the returns from child labor to the children in the household consistent with a model of household labor supply with fully altruistic parents

race and human capital while human capital has been used with some success to analyze recent changes in racial income differences scholars have repeatedly pointed to a major empirical problem that appears to severely limit the historical relevanlce and scope of skill based theories as applied to racial questions the challenge they raise is legitimate put simply if measured skill disparities between the races narrowed throughout the twentieth century why did income ratios first begin to converge in the 1960 s in this paper i address this question relying on some unexploited census data by race on education literacy occupations and income using these data that begin with the 1890 census i present new estimates of agespecific relative income positions of black men for all postslavery birth cohorts in addition to reconciling the apparently inconsistent skill and income series these income ratios offer a very different historical record than many economists believe to have been the case to cite a prominent example gunnar myrdal s classic work 1944 saw the economic position of his contemporary black america not only as dismal but made even more so by its sense of hopelessness given the absence of any hint of progress or change while myrdal s pessimism is understandable it appears that even in his day seeds had long been sown that were already permanently altering and improving the relative economic status of black men

caveat emptor cross country data on education and the labor force abstract cross country data on education and the labor force frequently are used to describe important dimensions of development and to estimate models of economic growth and growth determinants the impact of education and related phenomena this investigation finds 1 there are serious intertemporal and inter country comparability problems with these data that may importantly affect inferences about labor force size trends and productivity and schooling investments and impact 2 data gaps are systematically related to levels of development and literacy and 3 conclusions about the determinants or consequences of development based on constructed data that have been made available to fill data gaps can be seriously misleading

earnings functions when wages and prices vary by location economists generally assume implicitly that the return to schooling is invariant across local labor markets we demonstrate that this outcome pertains if and only if preferences are homothetic a special case that seems unlikely our theory predicts that returns to education will instead be relatively low in expensive high amenity locations our analysis of u s data provides support for this contention returns to college are especially low in such cities as san francisco and seattle our findings call into question standard empirical exercises in labor economics that treat the returns to education as a single parameter

estimation of international output energy relation effects of alternative output measures abstract this paper analyzes the output energy relationship with alternative measures of output and energy our analysis rejects the hypothesis of non diminishing returns to energy consumption when gdp at purchasing power parities is used as the output measure unlike the case with gnp at market exchange rates this finding also holds when energy input includes the usage of both commercial and traditional fuels

recruitment restrictions and labor markets evidence from the postbellum u s south this article studies the effect of recruitment restrictions on mobility and wages in the postbellum u s south i estimate the effects of criminal fines charged for enticement recruiting workers already under contract on sharecropper mobility tenancy choice and agricultural wages i find that a 13 10 increase in the enticement fine lowered the probability of a move by black sharecroppers by 12 daily wages by 1 cent 1 and the returns to experience for blacks by 0 6 per year these results are consistent with an on the job search model where the enticement fine raises the cost of recruiting an employed worker

black white wage inequality employment rates and incarceration the observed gap in average wages between black men and white men inadequately reflects the relative economic standing of blacks who suffer from a high rate of joblessness the authors estimate the black white gap in hourly wages from 1980 to 1999 adjusting for the sample selection effect of labor inactivity among working age men in 1999 accounting for labor inactivity including prison and jail incarceration leads to an increase of 7 20 in the black white wage gap adjusting for sample selectivity among men ages 22 30 in 1999 increases the wage gap by as much as 58 increasing selection bias which can be attributed to incarceration and conventional joblessness explains about two thirds of the rise in black relative wages among young men between 1985 and 1998 apparent improvement in the economic position of young black men is thus largely an artifact of rising joblessness fueled by the growth in incarceration during the 1990s

the schooling of southern blacks the roles of legal activism and private philanthropy 1910 1960 improvements in education and educational quality are widely acknowledged to be major contributors to black economic progress in the twentieth century this paper investigates the sources of improvement in black education in the south in the first half of the century and demonstrates the important roles of social activism especially naacp litigation and private philanthropy in improving the quality and availability of public schooling many scholars view education as a rival to social activism in explaining black economic progress but such a view misses the important role of philanthropic and legal interventions in promoting education

flip flopping from primaries to general elections abstract i consider a model in which candidates must win a primary election to compete in the general election candidates may choose different policies in the primary and the general election but doing so results in accusations of flip flopping i show that candidates adopt extreme policies in the primaries but then try to move closer to the center for the general election even though primary voters are forward looking and anticipate this policy moderation the extent to which candidates move closer to the center is constrained by flip flopping costs and candidates choose divergent policies in the general election i obtain comparative statics results on candidate policy choices in terms of voter preferences

does school quality matter returns to education and the characteristics of public schools in the united states this paper estimates the effects of school quality measured by the pupil teacher ratio average term length and relative teacher pay on the rate of return to education for men born between 1920 and 1949 using earnings data from the 1980 census we find that men who were educated in states with higher quality schools have a higher return to additional years of schooling rates of return are also higher for individuals from states with better educated teachers and with a higher fraction of female teachers holding constant school quality measures however we find no evidence that parental income or education affects average state level rates of return

separate and unequal in the labor market human capital and the jim crow wage gap competing explanations for the long standing gap between black and white earnings attribute different weight to wage discrimination and human capital differences using new data on local school quality we find that human capital played a predominant role in determining 1940 wage and occupational status gaps in the south despite entrenched racial discrimination in civic life and the lack of federal employment protections the resulting wage gap coincides with the higher end of the range of estimates from the post civil rights era we estimate that truly separate but equal schools would have reduced wage inequality by 29 48

determining the impact of federal antidiscrimination policy on the economic status of blacks a study of south carolina this paper evaluates alternative explanations for the dramatic increase in black employment in south carolina manufacturing that occurred in the mid 1960s black progress in traditionally segregated sectors of manufacturing in operation at the time jim crow laws were passed cannot be attributed to tight labor markets the decline of agriculture or the growth of education of the black workforce the only plausible explanation is federal government civil rights and affirmative action policy for newer industries that entered the state on a large scale after world war ii the growth of skills among blacks accounts for black economic progress copyright 1989 by american economic association

the effect on black white wage differences of differences in the quantity and quality of education using data from the national longitudinal survey of youth for the years 1979 88 the author examines the extent to which black white differences in educational attainment educational quality and unmeasured individual ability can explain black white wage differences an analysis that corrects for both selectivity and ability biases inherent in estimating the education wage relationship shows that the main source of the black white wage differential is the racial difference in the quality rather than quantity of schooling in fact the author concludes closing the racial gap in the basic skills learned in school could reduce the wage differential by two thirds

school quality and returns to education of u s immigrants using the u s labor market as a common point of reference this article investigates the influence of source country school quality on the returns to education of immigrants based on 1980 and 1990 census data we first estimate country of origin specific returns to education results reveal that immigrants from japan and northern europe receive high returns and immigrants from central america receive low returns next we examine the relationship between school quality measures and these returns holding per capita gdp and other factors constant immigrants from countries with lower pupil teacher ratios and greater expenditures per pupil earn higher returns to education

networks in labor markets wage and employment dynamics and inequality we present a model of labor markets that accounts for the social network through which agents hear about jobs we show that both wages and employment are positively associated a strong form of correlation across time and agents we also analyze the decisions of agents regarding staying in the labor market or dropping out if there are costs to staying in the labor market then networks of agents that start with a worse wage status will have higher drop out rates and there will be a persistent differences in wages between groups according to the starting states of their networks

the impact of the great migration on mortality of african americans evidence from the deep south the great migration the massive migration of african americans out of the rural south to largely urban locations in the north midwest and west was a landmark event in u s our paper shows that this migration increased mortality of african americans born in the early twentieth century south this inference comes from an analysis that uses proximity of birthplace to railroad lines as an instrument for migration

the impact of school quality on earnings and educational returns evidence from a low income country abstract the expansion of education has been widely adopted as a key element in the development strategies of low income countries while there is substantial evidence on the benefits of greater educational attainment for subsequent labor market earnings empirical evidence on the role played by school quality is scarce this paper combines household survey data with unique data on school quality from honduras to study the importance of school quality as a determinant of earnings our objective measures of school quality capture teacher training school infrastructure and school crowding the results display strong positive effects of school quality on earnings and on educational returns these effects persist across a variety of model specifications

the effect of competition on the efficiency of secondary schools in england abstract in this paper we calculate the technical efficiencies based upon multiple outputs school exam performance and attendance rates of all secondary schools in england over the period 1993 1998 we then estimate models to examine the determinants of efficiency in a particular year and the determinants of the change in efficiency over the period our results suggest that the greater the degree of competition between schools the more efficient they are the strength of this effect has also increased over time which is consistent with the evolution of the quasi market in secondary education competition is also found to be an important determinant of the change in efficiency over time there is however some evidence of conditional convergence between schools

the differing nature of black white wage inequality across occupational sectors the nature of racial wage inequality appears to differ across occupation sectors specifically i find that all of the racial wage inequality in the white collar job sector can be accounted for by controlling for the academic skill level of each worker but almost half of the overall racial wage inequality remains in the blue collar sector after controlling for each worker s academic skill relatedly after controlling for academic skill i find that black workers are actually more likely to work in the white collar sector than white workers i show that these findings are consistent and arguably directly implied by both preference based and statistical based models of discrimination however omitted variable bias and measurement error also cannot be ruled out as possible explanations

understanding black white wage differentials 1960 1990 understanding black white wage differentials 1960 1990 author s james j heckman thomas m lyons petra e todd source the american economic review vol 90 no 2 papers and proceedings of the one hundred twelfth annual meeting of the american economic association may 2000 pp 344 349 published by american economic association stable url http www jstor org stable 117248 accessed 16 08 2008 00 56

incorporating the causes of occupational differences in studies of racial wage differentials this study provides a basic framework for incorporating the causes of occupational differences into analyses of racial wage differentials separating the influences of personal characteristics occupational choice and hiring discrimination on occupational attainment provides measures of the contributions of each to the racial pay gap the paper also considers the potential for bias in the wage equation estimates arising from self selection into occupations there are two generalfindings first correcting for self selection increases the importance of occupational distribution in explaining racial wage differentials second a proper accounting of the causes of these occupational differences yields discrimination measures that are higher than those that arise when occupational dummy variables are included in the wage equations and all the difference in occupational distribution is treated as nondiscriminatory

school quality and black white relative earnings a direct assessment the wage differential between black and white men fell from 40 percent in 1960 to 25 percent in 1980 it has been argued that this convergence reflects improvements in the relative quality of black schools to test this hypothesis we assembled data on pupil teacher ratios annual teacher pay and term length for black and white schools in the eighteen segregated states from 1915 to 1966 these data are linked to estimated returns to education for southern born men from different cohorts and states in 1960 1970 and 1980 improvements in the relative quality of black schools explain 20 percent of the narrowing of the black white earnings gap between 1960 and 1980

a new look at the causes of the improved economic status of black workers the wage differential between black and white men fell from 40 percent in 1960 to 25 percent in 1980 it has been argued that this convergence reflects improvements in the relative quality of black schools to test this hypothesis we assembled data on

experience tenure and the perceptions of employers this paper examines how group based assessments concerning employee ability impact employee compensation the employer learns about worker ability through bayesian updating creating an additional channel for wage growth that is not available to those workers with only general labor market experience consistent with the model s predictions results from national longitudinal survey of youth nlsy indicate that black workers fare much better relative to white workers in returns to tenure than in returns to experience finally parameter estimates in the structural model suggest that employers initially undervalue black males but that their wages rise with learning by employers over time on average black males earn lower wages than white males just as average wages differ across many groups this paper examines one explanation for this wage gap the possibility that employers underestimate the ability of workers in one or more groups in particular this paper proposes a model that provides explicit predictions about the affect of employer s perceptions on workers returns to general experience and tenure on the job we then examine the wage growth of young males to see whether patterns are consistent with the model economic theory provides many other explanations for differences in wages across groups

returns to investment in education a global update the author updates compilations of rate of return estimates to investment in education published since 1985 and discusses methodological issues surrounding those estimates some key patterns among the three main levels of education primary education continues to exhibit the highest social profitability in all world regions private returns are considerably higher than social returns because of the public subsidization of education the degree of public subsidy increases with the level of education which is regressive social and private returns at all levels generally decline by the level of a country s per capita income overall the returns to female education are higher than those to male education but at individual levels of education the pattern is more mixed the returns to the academic secondary school track are higher than the vocational track since unit cost of vocational education is much higher and the returns for those who work in the private competitive sector of the economy are higher than in the public noncompetitive sector and the returns in the self employment unregulated sector of the economy are higher than in the dependent employment sector controversies in the literature are discussed in the light of the new evidence the undisputable and universal positive correlation between education and earnings can be interpreted in many ways the causation issue on whether education really affects earnings can be answered only with experimental data generated by randomly exposing different people to various amounts of education given the fact that moral and pragmatic considerations prevent the generation of such pure data researchers have to make do with indirect inferences or natural experiments some have been attempted the author looks at the research on overeducation or surplus schooling the conclusions reinforce earlier patterns they confirm that primary education continues to be the number one investment priority in developing countries they also show that educating females is marginally more profitable than educating males that the academic secondary school curriculum is a better investment than the technical vocational tract and that the returns to education obey the same rules as investment in conventional capital that is they decline as investment is expanded