Christopher R. Taber

Household International Inc. Research Professor of Economics
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research,
Northwestern University
Ph.D., Economics, University of Chicago, 1995
ctaber@northwestern.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Additional biographical information

Christopher Taber's research focuses on the development and implementation of econometric models of skill formation including schooling on-the-job training and other forms of human capital investment. His recent research includes studies of Catholic schooling, wage growth among low-wage workers, and general equilibrium models of the labor market.

Current Projects

The Effect of Private School Vouchers on Student Performance. Along with Chingi Huang of Northwestern University and Joseph Altonji of Yale University, Taber examines whether a voucher program for private schools would lure the best students away from public schools, with negative consequences for those who remain behind. Given both heterogeneity in program types and limited data on entrance into voucher programs, one cannot answer this question directly. Instead, they study what the effect of vouchers would be on the students left behind if vouchers tend to attract students who are similar to those who currently go to private high schools. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, they estimate a model of the private school entrance decision and the importance of observable peer group effects on outcomes. They then combine these results to simulate the effects of a voucher program on outcomes of those left behind in public schools. They estimate the model using a number of specifications and have preliminary results both for the case in which they focus on Catholic high schools and for the case in which they consider all private high schools. Under completely general specifications, the results are quite imprecise. However, under stronger index type assumptions, they obtain more precision and find that the consequences of cream skimming are negative but very small for high school graduation rates and also negative but small for college attendance.

Wage Growth Among Low Skilled Workers. Taber along with Tricia Gladden of the University of Missouri are involved in a large project dedicated towards understanding wage growth among low-wage workers. They have written two previous papers on the subject. The goal of their current work is to assess the importance of turnover as a component of wage growth. In particular, they plan to quantify the importance of turnover as a component of wage growth and to compare an “optimal” path of wages to the actual observed path.

Taber is also working with Bhashkar Mazumbder and Eric French both of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank to look at the manner in which wage growth varies over time. So far, their results suggest that wage growth does vary considerably over time and is mainly driven by changes in the returns to experience.

The Effects of Labor Market Policy on Skill Formation in a General Equilibrium Environment. In collaboration with James Heckman at the University of Chicago, and Lance Lochner at the University of Rochester, Taber is estimating an empirical dynamic general equilibrium model of skill formation with heterogeneous human capital. They are trying to account for all major factors of the changing U.S. labor market over the past 30 years. After estimating the model, they will use it to evaluate a wide range of policy issues including tuition subsidies and the effects of taxation on human capital investment, particularly progressive taxes. Their previous work has shown that ignoring general equilibrium effects in policy evaluation can produce very misleading results. The current work expands the model in a number of different directions to gain further insight into skill formation and the labor supply of workers.