Catherine J. Weinberger

Biography

Catherine J. Weinberger graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison with a B.S. in Mathematics in 1981, then completed a Master's Degree in Mathematics (1988) and PhD in Economics (1993) at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been an independent scholar, affiliated with the University of California Santa Barbara, since 1994.

Research

Some people earn more than others, even within a group of people who graduated from the same school in the same year. Catherine Weinberger's research investigates how the labor market values education, skills and other attributes of individuals. Research assessing the importance of both cognitive skills (as measured by standardized test scores, educational attainment and college major) and factors like leadership and other social skills revealed that the labor market has recently begun to favor individuals with a combination of both cognitive and "soft" skills. A new longitudinal study currently underway links behavioral measures of generosity collected during the base year survey to labor market outcomes ten years later. Catherine has also conducted research on gender differences in earnings dynamics over the course of a career, and has studied game theoretic models of bargaining to understand factors that lead to failed negotiations, even when both parties have access to all pertinent information.

Selected Publications

Weinberger, Catherine J. 2018. "Engineering Educational Opportunity: Impacts of 1970s and 1980s Policies to Increase the Share of Black College Graduates with Major in Engineering or Computer Science." in U.S. Engineering in a Global Economy, edited by Richard Freeman and Hal Salzman, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and University of Chicago Press. http://www.nber.org/papers/w23703.

Weinberger, Catherine J. 2014. "The Increasing Complementarity between Cognitive and Social Skills." The Review of Economics and Statistics, 96(5):849-861.

Garratt, Rodney J., Catherine Weinberger and Nick Johnson, 2013 "The State Street Mile: Age and Gender Differences in Competition-Aversion in the Field." Economic Inquiry, 51(1):806-815.

Weinberger, Catherine J. 2011. "In Search of the Glass Ceiling: Gender and Earnings Growth among U.S. College Graduates in the 1990s." Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 64(5):949-980.

Weinberger, Catherine and Peter Kuhn, 2010. "Changing Levels or Changing Slopes? The Narrowing of the U.S. Gender Earnings Gap, 1959-1999." Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 63(3):384-406.

Peter Kuhn and Catherine Weinberger "Leadership Skills and Wages." Journal of Labor Economics.July 2005 23(3):395-436.

Weinberger, Catherine. 2004. "Just Ask! Why Surveyed Women Did Not Pursue Information Technology Courses or Careers." IEEE Technology and Society, 23(2):28-35 Summer 2004.

Weinberger, Catherine J. 2000. "Selective Acceptance and Inefficiency in a Two-Issue Complete Information Bargaining Game." Games and Economic Behavior 31(May):262-293.

Weinberger, Catherine J. 1999. "Mathematical College Majors and the Gender Gap in Wages." Industrial Relations 38(3):407-13.

Weinberger, Catherine J. 1998. "Race and Gender Wage Gaps in the Market for Recent College Graduates." Industrial Relations 37(1):67-84.