Intergenerational Mobility, Human Capital Transmission and the Earnings of Second-Generation Immigrants in Sweden We compare the intergenerational earnings mobility of immigrants with natives in Sweden. We find an overall convergence in average earnings between immigrants and natives. This convergence hides a divergence in average earnings between groups of immigrants with different ethnic orig...

It has been argued that the most likely explanation for the result that earnings rise with firm size is that large firms employ high-ability individuals. In this paper we use matched employer-employee panel data from Ghana and Kenya and test for firm size effects in earnings regressions whilst controlling for unobserved ability in the form of worker fixed effects. For both countries we obtain a...

Separating Uncertainty from Heterogeneity in Life Cycle Earnings 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 ...

Earnings Instability and Earnings Inequality in Urban China: 1989–2006 This paper investigates the evolution of earnings inequality in urban China from 1989 to 2006. After decomposing the variance of log of earnings into transitory and permanent two parts, we find that both components are important contributors to the total variance of earnings. We also find that the share of the transitory par...

Regression and neural network models of wage determination are constructed where the explanatory variables include detailed information about skills. People skills, strategic skills, and IT skills all carry strong and significant wage premia; problemsolving skills (surprisingly) and physical skills (less surprisingly) do not. In contrast to the impact of school curriculum on subsequent earnings...

This paper investigates Japanese banks' earnings management behavior under three distinct economic environments: (1) highgrowth with asset price bubble economy (1985–1990); (2) stagnant growth with financial distress economy (1991–1996); and (3) severe recession with credit crunch economy (1997–1999). Using bank balance sheet information of 78 Japanese banks, we find that earnings management be...

Labor Market Assimilation and the Self-Employment Decision of Immigrant Entrepreneurs This paper uses data from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Censuses to study labor market assimilation of self-employed immigrants. Separate earnings functions for the self-employed and wage/salary workers are estimated. To control for endogenous sorting into the sectors, models of the self-employment decision are estim...

In this paper, we examine the effect of voluntary adoption of clawback provision on non-GAAP earnings disclosures. The extant literature documents that the voluntary adoption of clawback provisions improves financial reporting quality by increasing the costs of misstating GAAP earnings. However, managers may respond to perception of reduced discretion over GAAP reporting by increasing their rel...

We find that the positive relation between aggregate accruals and one-year-ahead market returns documented in Hirshleifer, Hou and Teoh [2009] is driven by discretionary accruals but not normal accruals. The return forecasting power of aggregate discretionary accruals is robust to choices of sample periods, return measurements, estimation methods, business condition and risk premium proxies, an...

Labor Market Assimilation and the Self-Employment Decision of Immigrant Entrepreneurs This paper uses data from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Censuses to study labor market assimilation of self-employed immigrants. Separate earnings functions for the self-employed and wage/salary workers are estimated. To control for endogenous sorting into the sectors, models of the self-employment decision are estim...