This paper challenges the notion that on-the-job training investments are quantitatively important for workers' welfare and argues that on-the-job training may not increase lifetime income by more than 1 percent. I argue that it is very difficult to reconcile the slowdown in wage growth late in a worker's career with optimizing behavior unless the technology for learning on the job is such that it generates very low gains from training. The analysis is based on a nonparametric methodology for estimating the learning technology from wage profiles; the results are arrived at by comparing the lifetime income when the worker optimally invests in his human capital to the one where he does not make any investments. (JEL: E24, J24, J31)
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Volume (Year): 96 (2006) Issue (Month): 3 (June) Pages: 832-846 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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Browning, Martin & Hansen, Lars Peter & Heckman, James J., 1999.
"Micro data and general equilibrium models,"
Handbook of Macroeconomics,
in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 543-633
Elsevier.
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Ryder, Harl E & Stafford, Frank P & Stephan, Paula E, 1976.
"Labor, Leisure and Training over the Life Cycle,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 17(3), pages 651-74, October.
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Mark Huggett & Gustavo Ventura & Amir Yaron, 2007.
"Sources of Lifetime Inequality,"
Working Papers
gueconwpa~07-07-04, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
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