American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Tenure, Experience, Human Capital, and Wages: A Tractable Equilibrium Search Model of Wage Dynamics
American Economic Review
vol. 104,
no. 6, June 2014
(pp. 1551–96)
Abstract
We develop and estimate an equilibrium job search model of worker careers, allowing for human capital accumulation, employer heterogeneity and individual-level shocks. Wage growth is decomposed into contributions of human capital and job search, within and between jobs. Human capital accumulation is largest for highly educated workers. The contribution from job search to wage growth, both within- and between-job, declines over the fi rst ten years of a career – the ‘job-shopping’ phase of a working life – after which workers settle into high-quality jobs using outside o ffers to generate gradual wage increases, thus reaping the bene fits from competition between employers.Citation
Bagger, Jesper, François Fontaine, Fabien Postel-Vinay, and Jean-Marc Robin. 2014. "Tenure, Experience, Human Capital, and Wages: A Tractable Equilibrium Search Model of Wage Dynamics." American Economic Review, 104 (6): 1551–96. DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.6.1551Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
- J63 Labor Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
- J64 Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search