Returns to skills and work experience in Europe. Same or different?

We estimate the Mincer equations for a set of European countries. Cross country heterogeneity of parameters, describing the impact of years of schooling and experience on wages, was obtained by the application of the system of Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations (SURE). The differences between parameters were formally tested given two alternative stochastic assumptions. In the first model, no contemporaneous correlations between error terms in the system is imposed. This may be related to the standard country regression approach. In the second approach an unrestricted covariance matrix is considered, making error terms stochastically dependent. The contemporaneous correlations of error terms in the SURE system were empirically supported. Also, rich parameterisation of the covariance matrix of contemporaneous relations reduced the statistical uncertainty about differences in parameters describing the return on education effect. Consequently, substantial country heterogeneity of return on education, which seems intuitively correct, was obtained in the system of regressions with a complex stochastic structure.