Conventional analysis predicts that workers pay part of their on-the-job training costs by accepting a lower starting wage and subsequently realize a return to this investment in the form of greater wage growth. Missing from the conventional treatment of on-the-job training is a discussion of the process by which heterogeneous workers are matched to jobs requiring varying amounts of training. This matching process constitutes a key feature of the on-the-job training model presented in this article and tested with a unique data set containing extensive information concerning on-the-job training, employer search, wages, and wage and productivity growth.

Recently, Toyota sought a plant location in the United States. The $800-million plant will employ 3000 workers, and numerous states offered Toyota generous investment incentives, hoping this would induce Toyota to select their state. The Commonwealth of Kentucky won this competition, but the price was high: the present value of the payments exceeds $125 million. The payment of investment incentives for the Toyota plant is not unique. In 1976 Pennsylvania paid $75 million to attract a Volkswagen plan,; Nissan, Honda, and Mazda received generous investment incentives when locating plants in the United States. And this bidding is not limited to states. To attract the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (USA), with its 1300 jobs and $38 million annual payroll, civic leaders in Louisville, Kentucky, offered the church a warehouse and $6.2 million for renovation of the structure, bidding the church away from Kansas City, Missouri.' In this paper, we contend that this competition may result from the average cost pricing of publicly provided goods and services.2 When the marginal cost of providing a firm and its workers with public services is less than the tax revenue they generate, a government may offer the firm subsidies that reduce the distortions the average cost pricing of the public service creates. Thus, this competition for industry is not a zero-sum game where the subsidies are only transfers from the government to the firm. Rather, these subsidies may facilitate the efficient location of industry.