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…

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…

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,…