NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Human Capital and Earnings Distribution Dynamics

Mark Hugget, Gustavo Ventura, Amir Yaron

NBER Working Paper No. 9366*
Issued in December 2002
NBER Program(s):   AP    EFG

Mean earnings and measures of earnings dispersion and skewness all increase in US data over most of the working life-cycle for a typical cohort as the cohort ages. We show that a benchmark human capital model can replicate these properties from the right distribution of initial human capital and learning ability. These distributions have the property that learning ability must differ across agents and that learning ability and initial human capital are positively correlated.

*Published: Huggett, Mark & Ventura, Gustavo & Yaron, Amir, 2006. "Human capital and earnings distribution dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 265-290, March.

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