About

Joseph G. Altonji is the Thomas DeWitt Cuyler Professor of Economics at Yale University and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He previously held faculty positions at Columbia and Northwestern and served as a visiting professor at Princeton and Harvard. He is an elected fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has served as a past president of the Society of Labor Economists and the Eastern Economic Association. Altonji specializes in labor economics and applied econometrics, with research interests including labor market fluctuations, labor supply, consumption behavior, the economics of education, economic links among family members, race and gender in the labor market, wage determination, and econometric methods. His current research focuses on the role of families and schools in inequality, dynamic models of earnings, marriage, and family income, the effects of undergraduate and graduate fields of study on labor market outcomes, the costs of college majors, long-term trends in the gender earnings gap among college graduates, and methodologies for addressing selection bias in econometric analysis.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Labour economics
• Economics
• Mathematics
• Accounting
• Finance
• Econometrics
• Psychology
• Demographic economics

Selected publications

• Decomposing Trends in the Gender Gap for Highly Educated Workers

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Returns to Specific Graduate Degrees: Estimates Using Texas Administrative Records

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Returns to Specific Graduate Degrees: Estimates Using Texas Administrative Records

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-02-01 · 5 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We estimate causal effects of 121 graduate degrees on log earnings. The returns average 0.159 but vary widely across fields, with a standard deviation of 0.176. Experience profiles of the returns also vary and are particularly steep for medicine. Internal rates of return, which account for program length, tuition, and in-school earnings, are sizable but vary less across fields. Earnings effects are higher for women, lower for part time students, and depend on undergraduate major. Students from lower-paying undergraduate majors benefit more from an MBA or JD. School specific returns are higher for higher ranked JD and MBA programs.

  PublisherDOI

• Decomposing Trends in the Gender Gap for Highly Educated Workers

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-08-01 · 1 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper examines the gender gap in log earnings among full-time, college-educated workers born between 1931 and 1984.Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates and other sources, we decompose the gender earnings gap across birth cohorts into three components: (i) gender differences in the relative returns to undergraduate and graduate fields, (ii) gender-specific trends in undergraduate field, graduate degree attainment, and graduate field, and (iii) a cohortspecific "residual component" that shifts the gender gap uniformly across all college graduates.We have three main findings.First, when holding the relative returns to fields constant, changes in fields of study contribute 0.128 to the decline in the gender gap.However, this decline is partially offset by cohort trends in the relative returns to specific fields that favored men over women, reducing the contribution of field-of-study changes to the decline to 0.055.Second, gender differences in the relative returns to undergraduate and graduate fields of study contribute to the earnings gap, but they play a limited role in explaining its decline over time.Third, much of the convergence in earnings between the 1931 and 1950 cohorts is due to a declining "residual component."The residual component remains stable for cohorts born between 1951 and the late 1970s, after which it resumes its decline.

  PublisherDOI

• Earnings, Marriage, and the Variance of Family Income by Age, Gender, and Cohort

  Journal of Labor Economics · 2025-04-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  For birth cohorts 1935–44, 1945–62, and 1964–74, we estimate the contribution of education; permanent heterogeneity in wage rates, employment, and hours; labor market shocks; spouse characteristics and shocks; nonlabor income shocks; and marital histories to the age profiles of the variance of family income per adult equivalent. Education and employment heterogeneity are key sources of the rise in variance with age and across cohorts. Wage heterogeneity is important at all ages. Own characteristics and shocks matter more for men than women, while spouse characteristics and shocks matter more for women. Gender differences have declined across cohorts.

  PublisherDOI

• Earnings, Marriage, and the Variance of Family Income by Age, Gender, and Cohort

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-11-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  For birth cohorts 1935–44, 1945–62, and 1964–74, we estimate the contribution of edu-cation; permanent heterogeneity in wage rates, employment, and hours; labor market shocks; spouse characteristics and shocks; nonlabor income shocks; and marital histories to the age profiles of the variance of family income per adult equivalent. Education and employment heterogeneity are key sources of the rise in the variance with age and across cohorts. Wage heterogeneity is important at all ages. Own characteristics and shocks matter more for men than women, while spouse characteristics and shocks matter more for women. Gender differences have declined across cohorts.

  PublisherDOI

• Earnings, Marriage, and the Variance of Family Income by Age, Gender, and Cohort

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Effects of Advanced Degrees on the Wage Rates, Hours, Earnings, and Job Satisfaction of Women and Men

  2023-01-10 · 5 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter uses a college-by-graduate degree fixed effects estimator to evaluate the returns to 19 different graduate degrees for men and women. We find substantial variation across degrees, and evidence that OLS overestimates the returns to degrees with the highest average earnings and underestimates the returns to degrees with the lowest average earnings. Second, we decompose the impacts on earnings into effects on wage rates and effects on hours. For most degrees, the earnings gains come from increased wage rates, though hours play an important role in some degrees, such as medicine, especially for women. Third, we estimate the net present value and internal rate of return for each degree, which account for the time and monetary costs of degrees. Finally, we provide descriptive evidence that satisfaction gains are large for some degrees with smaller economic returns, such as education and humanities degrees, especially for men.

  PublisherDOI

• The Effects of Advanced Degrees on the Wage Rates, Hours, Earnings and Job Satisfaction of Women and Men

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Individual earnings and family income: Dynamics and distribution

  Review of Economic Dynamics · 2022-09-08 · 9 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Richard K. Mansfield

  71 shared

• Iain Ware

  67 shared

• Sarah Cattan

  Institute for Fiscal Studies

  67 shared

• Aloysius Siow

  33 shared

• Ivan Vidangos

  28 shared

• Ana Paula Martins

  University of Minho

  26 shared

• Paul J. Devereux

  21 shared

• Prashant Bharadwaj

  19 shared

Awards & honors

• Elected Fellow of the Econometric Society
• Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Past President of the Society of Labor Economists
• Past President of the Eastern Economic Association
• Recipient of the IZA Prize in Labor Economics