This paper investigates the wage returns to schooling and actual early work experiences, and how these returns have changed over the past twenty years. Using the NLSY surveys, we develop and estimate a dynamic model of the joint schooling and work decisions that young men make in early adulthood, and quantify how they affect wages using a generalized Mincerian specification. Our results highlight the need to account for dynamic selection and changes in composition when analyzing changes in wage returns. In particular, we find that ignoring the selectivity of accumulated work experiences results in overstatement of the returns to education.

中文翻译：

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学校教育和早期工作经历的工资回报率的变化

本文调查了学校教育和实际早期工作经历的工资回报，以及这些回报在过去 20 年中的变化。使用 NLSY 调查，我们开发和估计了青年男性在成年早期做出的联合教育和工作决策的动态模型，并使用广义 Mincerian 规范量化它们如何影响工资。我们的结果强调了在分析工资回报变化时考虑动态选择和构成变化的必要性。特别是，我们发现忽略积累的工作经验的选择性会导致教育回报被夸大。