Empirical Evidence on Occupation and Industry Specific Human Capital

This paper presents instrumental variables estimates of the effects of firm tenure, occupation specific work experience, industry specific work experience, and general work experience on wages using data from the 1979 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. A key feature of the empirical work presented in this paper is that the returns to human capital are allowed to vary across occupations, in contrast to existing research which has constrained the parameters of the wage equation to be the same across occupations. The estimates indicate that both occupation and industry specific human capital are key determinants of wages, and the importance of various types of human capital varies widely across one-digit occupations. Human capital is primarily occupation specific in occupations such as craftsmen, where workers realize a 14% increase in wages after five years of occupation specific experience but do not realize wage gains from industry specific experience. In contrast, human capital is primarily industry specific in other occupations such as managerial employment where workers realize a 23% wage increase after five years of industry specific work experience. In other occupations, such as professional employment, both occupation and industry specific human capital are key determinants of wages

A Dynamic Analysis of Educational Attainment, Occupational Choices, and Job Search

This paper examines career choices using a dynamic structural model that nests a job search model within a human capital model of occupational and educational choices. Individuals in the model decide when to attend school and when to move between firms and occupations over the course of their career. Workers search for suitable wage and non-pecuniary match values at firms across occupations given their heterogeneous skill endowments and preferences for employment in each occupation. Over the course of their careers workers endogenously accumulate firm and occupation specific human capital that affects wages differently across occupations. The parameters of the model are estimated with simulated maximum likelihood using data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The structural parameter estimates reveal that both self-selection in occupational choices and mobility between firms account for a much larger share of total earnings and utility than the combined effects of firm and occupation specific human capital. Eliminating the gains from matching between workers and occupations would reduce total wages by 31%, eliminating the gains from job search would reduce wages by 19%, and eliminating the effects of firm and occupation specific human capital on wages would reduce wages by only 2.8%.occupational choice; job search; human capital; dynamic programming models

A Dynamic Analysis of Educational Attainment, Occupational Choices, and Job Search

This paper examines career choices using a dynamic structural model that nests a job search model within a human capital model of occupational and educational choices. Individuals in the model decide when to attend school and when to move between firms and occupations over the course of their career. Workers search for suitable wage and non-pecuniary match values at firms across occupations given their heterogeneous skill endowments and preferences for employment in each occupation. Over the course of their careers workers endogenously accumulate firm and occupation specific human capital that affects wages differently across occupations. The parameters of the model are estimated with simulated maximum likelihood using data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The structural parameter estimates reveal that both self-selection in occupational choices and mobility between firms account for a much larger share of total earnings and utility than the combined effects of firm and occupation specific human capital. Eliminating the gains from matching between workers and occupations would reduce total wages by 30%, eliminating the gains from job search would reduce wages by 19%, and eliminating the effects of firm and occupation specific human capital on wages would reduce wages by only 2.7%.occupational choice; job search; human capital; dynamic programming models

Saturation numbers in tripartite graphs

Given graphs $H$ and $F$, a subgraph $G\subseteq H$ is an $F$-saturated subgraph of $H$ if $F\nsubseteq G$, but $F\subseteq G+e$ for all $e\in E(H)\setminus E(G)$. The saturation number of $F$ in $H$, denoted $\text{sat}(H,F)$, is the minimum number of edges in an $F$-saturated subgraph of $H$. In this paper we study saturation numbers of tripartite graphs in tripartite graphs. For $\ell\ge 1$ and $n_1$, $n_2$, and $n_3$ sufficiently large, we determine $\text{sat}(K_{n_1,n_2,n_3},K_{\ell,\ell,\ell})$ and $\text{sat}(K_{n_1,n_2,n_3},K_{\ell,\ell,\ell-1})$ exactly and $\text{sat}(K_{n_1,n_2,n_3},K_{\ell,\ell,\ell-2})$ within an additive constant. We also include general constructions of $K_{\ell,m,p}$-saturated subgraphs of $K_{n_1,n_2,n_3}$ with few edges for $\ell\ge m\ge p>0$.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Search and Non-Wage Job Characteristics

This paper quantifies the importance of non-wage job characteristics to workers by estimating a structural on-the-job search model. The model generalizes the standard search framework by allowing workers to search for jobs based on both wages and job-specific non-wage utility flows. Within the structure of the search model, data on accepted wages and wage changes at job transitions identify the importance of non-wage utility through revealed preference. The parameters of the model are estimated by simulated minimum distance using the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). The estimates reveal that utility from non-wage job characteristics plays an important role in determining job mobility, the value of jobs to workers, and the gains from job search. More specifically, non-wage utility accounts for approximately one-third of the total gains from job mobility. These large non-pecuniary gains from search are missed by search models which assume that the wage captures the entire value of a job to a worker.job search, non-wage job characteristics, wage growth, revealed preference, compensating differentials