Working Paper: NBER ID: w4729
Authors: Jill M. Constantine; David Neumark
Abstract: Shifts in the incidence of various types of training over the 1980s favored more-educated, more-experienced workers. Coupled with the fact that this training is associated with higher wages, these shifts suggest that training may have contributed to the growth of wage inequality in this period. However, the shifts were apparently too small, or the returns to training too low, for training to have played a substantial role in this increase. The estimated changes in wage differentials associated with schooling and experience are at best only slightly smaller once we account for changes in the distribution of training across schooling and experience groups, as well as changes in the returns to training and in the length of training programs.
Keywords: wage inequality; training; education; labor economics
JEL Codes: J31; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Training incidence increases among more educated workers (J24) | wage inequality (J31) |
| Higher wages associated with training (J31) | wages (J31) |
| Training distribution changes (D39) | wage differentials (J31) |