This paper uses information from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and Displaced Worker Surveys (DWS) to provide evidence on the source of human capital specificity. Measures of four basic skills are constructed from the detailed DOT information. These measures are used to characterize the skill portfolio of each job and to construct distance measures between jobs. The pattern of wage losses from the DWS shows that large losses are more closely associated with switching skill portfolios than switching industry or occupation code per se and that these switches represent large decreases in the underlying skill portfolio in the post-displacement job. The recent evidence for industry specific capital is re-examined. An analysis using the same methods as Neal (1995) that incorporates the skill portfolio measures provides further evidence in favor of broad skill based specificity.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Length: Date of creation: 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:20083
Contact details of provider: Postal: CIBC Human Capital and Productivity Project, Social Science Centre, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2 Phone: 519-661-2111 Ext.85228 Web page: http://economics.uwo.ca/econref/WorkingPapers/
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Ingram, Beth F. & Neumann, George R., 2006.
"The returns to skill,"
Labour Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 35-59, February.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Gueorgui Kambourov & Iourii Manovskii, 2009.
"Occupational Specificity Of Human Capital,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(1), pages 63-115, 02.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)