PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Audrey Light
AU  - Andrew McGee
TI  - Employer Learning and the “Importance” of Skills
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.50.1.72
DP  - 2015 Jan 01
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 72--107
VI  - 50
IP  - 1
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/50/1/72.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/50/1/72.full
SO  - J Hum Resour2015 Jan 01; 50
AB  - We ask whether employer learning in the wage-setting process depends on skill type and skill importance to productivity, using measures of seven premarket skills and data for each skill’s importance to occupation-specific productivity. Before incorporating importance measures, we find evidence of employer learning for each skill type, for college and high school graduates, and for blue-and white-collar workers, but no evidence that employer learning varies significantly across skill or worker type. When we allow parameters identifying employer learning and screening to vary by skill importance, we identify tradeoffs between learning and screening for some (but not all) skills.