How do Workers Learn? Theory and Evidence on the Roots of Lifecycle Human Capital Accumulation

Xiao Ma, Alejandro Nakab and Daniela Vidart

No 2022-11, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: How do the sources of worker learning change over the lifecycle, and how do these changes impact human capital and wages? Using data from Germany and the US, we document that workers’ reliance on internal learning (learning from coworkers) de-creases with experience, while external learning (on-the-job training) follows an inverted U-shape. Based on this evidence, we develop a search model featuring multiple learning sources whose benefits evolve as workers age and accumulate human capital. Quan-titative results indicate that the interaction between internal and external learning is key to understanding lifecycle wage dynamics and the effects of learning policies and shocks.

Keywords: On-the-job learning; Human capital accumulation; Lifecycle wage growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J24 M53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 81 pages
Date: 2022-04, Revised 2024-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-bec, nep-dge, nep-hrm and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2022-11R4.pdf Full text (revised version) (application/pdf)
https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2022-11.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uct:uconnp:2022-11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics University of Connecticut 365 Fairfield Way, Unit 1063 Storrs, CT 06269-1063. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark McConnel ().