Job Mobility and Earnings Growth

Abstract

This paper uses detailed data on the salary histories of individuals to show how an individual's observed earnings growth can be decomposed into growth occurring on the job and growth occurring between jobs. it is shown that the relative contributions of these two components to overall earnings growth differ across race and education groups. Further, as predicted by the specific training hypothesis, the more mobile individuals are found to have smaller on-the-job earnings gains in absolute terms than the less mobile.