Separating Uncertainty from Heterogeneity in Life Cycle Earnings

Flavio Cunha, James Heckman and Salvador Navarro

No 1437, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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.

Keywords: counterfactuals; uncertainty; lifecycle earnings; schooling; heterogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 D84 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 125 pages
Date: 2004-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (80)

Published - published in: Oxford Economic Papers, 2005, 57 (2), 191-261

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1437.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 (2005)
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:iza:izadps:dp1437

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().