Working Paper
Small sample bias in GMM estimation of covariance structures
Segal, Lewis M.; Altonji, Joseph (1994)
Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues , Paper 94-8

Journal Article
Black/white differences in wealth
Segal, Lewis M.; Altonji, Joseph; Doraszelski, Ulrich (2000-01)
This article studies the extent to which the wide gap in the wealth holdings of whites and African Americans can be explained by differences in family income and demographic characteristics.
Economic Perspectives , Volume 24 , Issue Q I , Pages 38-50

Journal Article
Effects of personal and school characteristics on estimates of the return to education
Altonji, Joseph (1998-01)
What is the economic return to attending college? The earnings gap between college and high school graduates is large, but college and high school graduates differ in many ways besides education. This article finds that differences in family background and ability explain about one fourth of the gap.
Economic Perspectives , Volume 22 , Issue Q I , Pages 65-79

Discussion Paper
Risk-sharing, altruism, and the factor structure of consumption
Altonji, Joseph; Hayashi, Fumio; Kotlikoff, Laurence J. (1991)
We consider four models of consumption that differ with respect to efficient risk-sharing and altruism. They range from complete markets with altruism to family risk-sharing. We use a matched sample of parents and independent children available from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to discriminate between the four models. Our testing procedure is designed to deal with the set of observed independent children being endogenously selected. The combined hypothesis of complete markets and altruism can be decisively rejected, while we fail to reject altruism and hence family risk-sharing for a ...
Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics , Paper 48

Journal Article
Vacation laws and annual work hours
Oldham, Jennifer; Altonji, Joseph (2003-07)
This article reviews the theory and evidence regarding how work hours are determined and the role of employer policies on vacation. The authors discuss possible economic rationales for vacation laws and present empirical evidence on whether they affect annual work hours. The results indicate that vacation laws lead to a substantial reduction in work hours.
Economic Perspectives , Volume 27 , Issue Q III , Pages 19-29

Working Paper
Modeling earnings dynamics
Vidangos, Ivan; Altonji, Joseph; Smith, Anthony (2009)
In this paper we use indirect inference to estimate a joint model of earnings, employment, job changes, wage rates, and work hours over a career. Our model incorporates duration dependence in several variables, multiple sources of unobserved heterogeneity, job-specific error components in both wages and hours, and measurement error. We use the model to address a number of important questions in labor economics, including the source of the experience profile of wages, the response of job changes to outside wage offers, and the effects of seniority on job changes. We provide estimates of the ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2009-08

Working Paper
Employer learning and statistical discrimination
Pierret, Charles R.; Altonji, Joseph (1997)
Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues , Paper WP-97-11