IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/edecon/v13y2005i2p223-236.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of specific and general human capital after displacement

Author

Listed:
  • Ben Kriechel
  • Gerard Pfann

Abstract

Displaced workers experience significant and long-lasting wage losses. However, the average wage losses hide the tremendous differences among workers. So far, the differences are explained by differences in accumulated on-the-job experience, education level, age, and so on, but a large variation among similar workers remain. In this paper we investigate the effect of general and specific human capital on the unemployment duration and wage losses during the first three years following displacement. Information on the specificity of a job or function allows us to quantify the impact on the wage losses. We are able to rank positions in terms of the specificity of accumulated human capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Ben Kriechel & Gerard Pfann, 2005. "The role of specific and general human capital after displacement," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 223-236.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:edecon:v:13:y:2005:i:2:p:223-236
    DOI: 10.1080/09645290500031439
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09645290500031439
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09645290500031439?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas J. Dohmen & Ben Kriechel & Gerard A. Pfann, 2004. "Monkey bars and ladders: The importance of lateral and vertical job mobility in internal labor market careers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 193-228, June.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & Jorn-Steffen Pischke, 1999. "The Structure of Wages and Investment in General Training," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 539-572, June.
    3. Gibbons, Robert & Katz, Lawrence F, 1991. "Layoffs and Lemons," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(4), pages 351-380, October.
    4. Parsons, Donald O, 1972. "Specific Human Capital: An Application to Quit Rates and Layoff Rates," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(6), pages 1120-1143, Nov.-Dec..
    5. Edward P. Lazear, 2009. "Firm-Specific Human Capital: A Skill-Weights Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 914-940, October.
    6. Ruhm, Christopher J, 1991. "Are Workers Permanently Scarred by Job Displacements?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 319-324, March.
    7. Stevens, Margaret, 1994. "A Theoretical Model of On-the-Job Training with Imperfect Competition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(4), pages 537-562, October.
    8. Topel, Robert, 1990. "Specific capital and unemployment: Measuring the costs and consequences of job loss," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 181-214, January.
    9. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    10. Barton H. Hamilton, 2000. "Does Entrepreneurship Pay? An Empirical Analysis of the Returns to Self-Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 604-631, June.
    11. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Neal, Derek, 1995. "Industry-Specific Human Capital: Evidence from Displaced Workers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(4), pages 653-677, October.
    13. Pfann, Gerard A & Ben Kriechel, 2003. "Heterogeneity among Displaced Workers," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 164, Royal Economic Society.
    14. Lori G. Kletzer, 1998. "Job Displacement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 115-136, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lamo, Ana & Messina, Julián & Wasmer, Etienne, 2011. "Are specific skills an obstacle to labor market adjustment?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 240-256, April.
    2. Teixeira, Aurora A.C. & Tavares-Lehmann, Ana Teresa, 2014. "Human capital intensity in technology-based firms located in Portugal: Does foreign ownership matter?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 737-748.
    3. Ludivine Martin & Uyen T. Nguyen-Thi & Caroline Mothe, 2021. "Human resource practices, perceived employability and turnover intention: does age matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(28), pages 3306-3320, June.
    4. Beker, Victor A., 2012. "A case study on trade liberalization: Argentina in the 1990s," Economics Discussion Papers 2012-3, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Garcia Martinez, Marian & Zouaghi, Ferdaous & Sanchez Garcia, Mercedes, 2017. "Capturing value from alliance portfolio diversity: The mediating role of R&D human capital in high and low tech industries," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 55-67.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dan A. Black & Lars Skipper & Jeffrey A. Smith & Jeffrey Andrew Smith, 2023. "Firm Training," CESifo Working Paper Series 10268, CESifo.
    2. Vilhuber, Lars, 2001. "La spécificité de la formation en milieu de travail : un survol des contributions théoriques et empiriques récentes," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 77(1), pages 133-167, mars.
    3. Xin Jin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Not Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 0314, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    4. Jin, Xin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Note Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," MPRA Paper 58484, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. William J. Carrington & Bruce Fallick, 2017. "Why Do Earnings Fall with Job Displacement?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 688-722, October.
    6. Fossen, Frank M. & Büttner, Tobias J.M., 2013. "The returns to education for opportunity entrepreneurs, necessity entrepreneurs, and paid employees," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 66-84.
    7. William J. Carrington & Bruce Fallick, 2014. "Why Do Earnings Fall with Job Displacement?," Working Papers (Old Series) 1405, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    8. Rao, Neel, 2015. "General training in labor markets: Common value auctions with unobservable investment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 19-45.
    9. By Barbara Mueller & Jürg Schweri, 2015. "How specific is apprenticeship training? Evidence from inter-firm and occupational mobility after graduation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 1057-1077.
    10. Smits, W., 2007. "Industry-specific or generic skills? Conflicting interests of firms and workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 653-663, June.
    11. Cecilia ALBERT & Carlos GARCÍA-SERRANO & Virginia HERNANZ, 2010. "On-the-job training in Europe: Determinants and wage returns," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 149(3), pages 315-341, September.
    12. Simone Balestra & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2017. "When a Door Closes, a Window Opens? Long-Term Labor Market Effects of Involuntary Separations," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 18(1), pages 1-21, February.
    13. William J. Carrington, 2015. "Do We Know Why Earnings Fall with Job Displacement? Working Paper: 2015-01," Working Papers 49908, Congressional Budget Office.
    14. Dan Bernhardt & Steeve Mongrain, 2010. "The Layoff Rat Race," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(1), pages 185-210, March.
    15. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, December.
    16. Kristjan-Olari Leping, 2005. "Measuring the Specificity of Human Capital: a Skill-based Approach," Working Papers 134, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology.
    17. Michelle Haynes & Richard Upward & Peter Wright, 2002. "Estimating the wage costs of inter- and intra- sectoral adjustment," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 138(2), pages 229-253, June.
    18. Ortego-Marti, Victor, 2017. "Loss of skill during unemployment and TFP differences across countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 215-235.
    19. Filipe Almeida-Santos & Karen Mumford, 2006. "Employee Training, Wage Dispersion and Equality in Britain," Discussion Papers 06/14, Department of Economics, University of York.
    20. Tang, Heiwai, 2012. "Labor market institutions, firm-specific skills, and trade patterns," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 337-351.

    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:taf:edecon:v:13:y:2005:i:2:p:223-236. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CEDE20 .

    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.