IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/32229.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Toward an Understanding of the Returns to Cognitive Skills Across Cohorts

Author

Listed:
  • Judith K. Hellerstein
  • Sai Luo
  • Sergio S. Urzúa

Abstract

Recent research concludes that wage returns to cognitive skills have declined in the U.S. We reassess this finding. Using decomposition methods, we document the pivotal role played by dynamic shifts in the distributions of pre-labor market cognitive skills. Our findings show these shifts explain the declining estimated returns to cognitive skills, especially for white men. We discard measurement error as a potential driver. Although often overlooked, grappling with changing pre-labor market skill distributions is necessary for capturing the evolution of labor market returns to cognitive skills. This may prove especially important in the future given continuing changes in skill development in recent youth cohorts.

Suggested Citation

  • Judith K. Hellerstein & Sai Luo & Sergio S. Urzúa, 2024. "Toward an Understanding of the Returns to Cognitive Skills Across Cohorts," NBER Working Papers 32229, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32229
    Note: LS PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w32229.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32229. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.