Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, this study finds that education rates of return vary across racial/ethnic groups because of differing human capital investments made by families in each group. School quality also matters. Nearly the entire white/black earnings gap would disappear if black children had school and home…

In assessing sex-discrimination suit damages, debate rages over the type and number of variables included in a single-equation model of the salary-determination process. This article considers single- and multiple-equation models, providing 36 different damage calculations. For University of Minnesota data, equalization cost hinges on the…

Using data from a class action suit at the University of Minnesota, this paper shows the different costs arising from paying women a percentage increase on their actual salaries, versus paying them predicted salaries as if they were men. The political consequences of enacting these different equalization methods (without additional funding) are…

Compares registered nurses' wage profiles across three types of educational backgrounds (two-, three-, and four-year programs), allowing for alternative construction of the work-experience variable and correcting for participation selectivity and choice-of-credential biases. Results suggest that estimated wage equations are quite sensitive to the…

Hypothesizes that the labor market recognizes differences in the educational quality and quantity of urban and suburban education and rewards young workers accordingly. Estimating earnings equations for African-American and white youths shows that attendance at a central city high school does, indeed, lower earnings between 4 and 10 percent. (12…

Including family background variables in the wage equation significantly decreases estimated returns to a worker's own schooling. Using data on family members' schooling, this paper identifies family background's substantial effects on returns to schooling in Taiwan. The father's schooling is more important than the mother's in explaining wage…

Examines racial and gender wage differences for rural workers, using wage equations derived from G.S. Becker's human capital model. With the rural focus, American Indian males and black females experience the weakest wage returns to education within their respective genders. Discrimination seems more prevalent in the rural female labor market,…

Estimates separate earnings equations by employment sector and gender in Spain and identifies returns to human capital, based on 1990-91 household survey data. Public wages are higher, and civil servants more highly educated. However, the public sector pays lower returns to education and experience. Earnings advantage is largest for least skilled…