TheMincer earnings function is a single-equationmodel that explainswage income as afunction of schooling and experience. It is named afterJacob Mincer.^[1][2]Thomas Lemieux argues it is "one of the most widely used models in empirical economics". The equation has been examined on many datasets. Typically the logarithm of earnings is modelled as the sum of years of education and aquadratic function of "years of potential experience".^[3][4]

${\displaystyle \ln w=f(s,x)=\ln w_0+\rho s+{\beta }_{1}x+{\beta }_2{x}^2}$

Where the variables have the following meanings;${\displaystyle w}$ is earnings (theintercept${\displaystyle w_0}$ is the earnings of someone with no education and no experience);${\displaystyle s}$ is years of schooling;${\displaystyle x}$ is years of potential labour market experience.^[3] The parameters${\displaystyle \rho }$, and${\displaystyle {\beta }_1}$,${\displaystyle {\beta }_2}$ can be interpreted as thereturns to schooling and experience, respectively.

Sherwin Rosen, in his article celebrating Mincer's contribution, memorably noted that when data was interrogated using this equation one might describe them as having beenMincered.^[5]

• Björklund, Anders; Kjellström, Christian (2002). "Estimating the return to investments in education: how useful is the standard Mincer equation?".Economics of Education Review.21 (3):195–210.doi:10.1016/S0272-7757(01)00003-6.
• Borjas, George J. (2000).Labor Economics (Second ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 264–266.ISBN 0-07-231198-3.
• Cahuc, Pierre; Carcillo, Stéphane; Zylberberg, André (1992).Labor Economics (2nd ed.). Cambridge: The MIT Press. pp. 230–244.ISBN 978-0-262-02770-0.
• Heckman, J.; Lochner, L.;Todd, P. (2006)."Earnings Functions, Rates of Return and Treatment Effects: The Mincer Equation and Beyond".Handbook of the Economics of Education. Vol. 1. Amsterdam: North-Holland. pp. 307–458.doi:10.1016/S1574-0692(06)01007-5.ISBN 0-08-046566-8.
• Polachek, Solomon W. (2007)."Earnings Over the Lifecycle: The Mincer Earnings Function and Its Applications"(PDF).IZA Discussion Paper No. 3181.

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• Economics models

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