Separating Uncertainty from Heterogeneity in Life Cycle Earnings

Flavio Cunha, James Heckman and Salvador Navarro

No 11024, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper develops and applies a method for decomposing cross section variability of earnings into components that are forecastable at the time students decide to go to college (heterogeneity) and components that are unforecastable. About 60% of variability in returns to schooling is forecastable. This has important implications for using measured variability to price risk and predict college attendance.

JEL-codes: C33 D84 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm
Note: EFG ED LS CH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (374)

Published as Cunha, Flavio, James Heckman and Salvador Navarro. "Separating Uncertainty From Heterogeneity In Life Cycle Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, 2005, v57(2,Apr), 191-261.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11024.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Separating uncertainty from heterogeneity in life cycle earnings (2005)
Working Paper: Separating uncertainty from heterogeneity in life cycle earnings (2004)
Working Paper: Separating Uncertainty from Heterogeneity in Life Cycle Earnings (2004)
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:nbr:nberwo:11024

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11024

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().