Wage inequality
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The Determinants and Welfare Implications of US Workers' Diverging Location Choices by Skill: 1980–2000 Open
From 1980 to 2000, the rise in the US college/high school graduate wage gap coincided with increased geographic sorting as college graduates concentrated in high wage, high rent cities. This paper estimates a structural spatial equilibrium…
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Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory Open
We synthesize two related literatures on firm-level drivers of wage inequality. Studies of rent sharing that use matched worker-firm data find elasticities of wages with respect to value added per worker in the range of 0.05–0.15. Studies …
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Firming Up Inequality* Open
We use a massive, matched employer-employee database for the United States to analyze the contribution of firms to the rise in earnings inequality from 1978 to 2013. We find that one-third of the rise in the variance of (log) earnings occu…
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Low-Skill and High-Skill Automation Open
We present a task-based model in which high- and low-skill workers compete against machines in the production of tasks. Low-skill (high-skill) automation corresponds to tasks performed by low-skill (high-skill) labor being taken over by ca…
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Innovation, automation, and inequality: Policy challenges in the race against the machine Open
The effects of automation on economic growth, education, and inequality are analyzed using an R&D-driven growth model with endogenous education in which high-skilled workers are complements to machines and low-skilled workers are substitut…
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Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark Open
Despite considerable gender convergence over time, substantial gender inequality persists in all countries.Using Danish administrative data from 1980-2013 and an event study approach, we show that most of the remaining gender inequality in…
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Why Has Urban Inequality Increased? Open
This paper examines mechanisms driving the more rapid increases in wage inequality in larger cities between 1980 and 2007. Production function estimates indicate strong evidence of capital–skill complementarity and increases in the skill b…
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Quantile Selection Models With an Application to Understanding Changes in Wage Inequality Open
We propose a method to correct for sample selection in quantile regression models. Selection is modelled via the cumulative distribution function, or copula, of the percentile error in the outcome equation and the error in the participatio…
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Polarization and Rising Wage Inequality: Comparing the U.S. and Germany Open
Since the late 1970s, wage inequality has increased strongly both in the U.S. and Germany but the trends have been different. Wage inequality increased along the entire wage distribution during the 1980s in the U.S. and since the mid 1990s…
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The Declining Labor Market Prospects of Less-Educated Men Open
Over the last half century, US wage growth stagnated, wage inequality rose, and the labor-force participation rate of prime-age men steadily declined. In this article, we examine these worrying labor market trends, focusing on outcomes for…
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Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in US Wage Inequality Open
We document that between 50% and 70% of changes in the US wage structure over the last four decades are accounted for by the relative wage declines of worker groups specialized in routine tasks in industries experiencing rapid automation.W…
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The Rising Postgraduate Wage Premium Open
Despite post‐college degree holders now making up nearly 15% of the US adult workforce, studies of their labour market performance remain sparse. This is surprising given that they are the most educated group in the labour force and as, ov…
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Does it pay to be green? An exploratory analysis of wage differentials between green and non-green industries Open
Purpose This paper investigates the potential wage impacts of a shift to more environmentally sustainable production patterns. Design/methodology/approach The empirical analysis is carried out using labour force survey data and interval re…
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Immigration, Wages, and Education: A Labour Market Equilibrium Structural Model Open
Recent literature analysing wage effects of immigration assumes labour supply is fixed across education-experience cells. This article departs from this assumption estimating a labour market equilibrium dynamic discrete choice model on U.S…
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Matching in Cities Open
Using administrative German data, we show that large cities allow for a more efficient matching between workers and firms and this has important consequences for geographical inequality. Specifically, the match between high-quality workers…
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Wage Inequality in Germany after the Minimum Wage Introduction Open
While monthly wage inequality in Germany continued to increase strongly until 2010, it recently returned to the level of the year 2000. We assess the role of the national minimum wage introduced in 2015. Unconditional quantile regressions …
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Collective Bargaining and the Evolution of Wage Inequality in Italy Open
Italian male wage inequality has increased at a relatively fast pace from the mid‐1980s until the early 2000s, while it has been persistently flat since then. We analyse this trend, focusing on the period of most rapid growth in pay disper…
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Workplace Variation in Fatherhood Wage Premiums: Do Formalization and Performance Pay Matter? Open
Parenthood contributes substantially to broader gender wage inequality. The intensification of gendered divisions of paid and unpaid work after the birth of a child create unequal constraints and expectations such that, all else equal, mot…
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Distribution effects of the minimum wage in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay Open
This article provides a comparative analysis of the distribution effects of the increase in the real value of the minimum wage in Latin America during the 2000s in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Using …
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Globalisation and wage inequality Open
Globalisation has been blamed for rising inequality in rich and poor countries.Yet the views of many protagonists in this debate are not based on evidence.To help form an evidence-based opinion, I review in this paper the theoretical and e…
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Optimal Spatial Policies, Geography, and Sorting* Open
We study optimal spatial policies in a quantitative trade and geography framework with spillovers and spatial sorting of heterogeneous workers. We characterize the spatial transfers that must hold in efficient allocations, as well as labor…
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Higher education and high-wage gender inequality Open
Over the past 60 years, we have witnessed a relocation of gender wage inequality. Whereas the largest wage gaps were once concentrated among lower-paid, lower-educated workers, today these wage gaps sit among the highest-paid, highly-educa…
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Occupational Regulation in the European Union: Coverage and Wage Effects Open
We present the first EU‐wide study on the prevalence and labour market impact of occupational regulation in the European Union. Drawing on a new EU Survey of Regulated Occupations, we find that licensing affects about 22 per cent of worker…
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Publication and Attenuation Biases in Measuring Skill Substitution Open
A key parameter in the analysis of wage inequality is the elasticity of substitution between skilled and unskilled labor. We show that the empirical literature is consistent with both publication and attenuation bias in the estimated inver…
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Two worlds of female labour: gender wage inequality in western Europe, 1300–1800<sup>†</sup> Open
Labour market engagement by women is an important determinant of female autonomy that may also affect their demographic behaviour. In order to bring about the conditions for the female autonomy that characterized the European marriage patt…
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The role of employment interruptions and part-time work for the rise in wage inequality Open
The incidence of employment interruptions and temporary part-time work has grown strongly among full-time workers, yet little is known about the impact on wage inequality. This is the first study showing that such episodes play a substanti…
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Firming Up Inequality Open
Earnings inequality in the United States has increased rapidly over the last three decades, but little is known about the role of firms in this trend. For example, how much of the rise in earnings inequality can be attributed to rising dis…
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Rapid wage growth at the bottom has offset rising US inequality Open
US earnings inequality has not increased in the last decade. This marks the first sustained reversal of rising earnings inequality since 1980. We document this shift across eight data sources using worker surveys, employer-reported data, a…
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Gender Segregation, Occupational Sorting, and Growth of Wage Disparities Between Women Open
Average female wages in traditionally male occupations have steeply risen over the past couple of decades in Germany. This trend led to a new and substantial pay gap between women working in male-typed occupations and other women. I dissec…
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AKM Effects for German Labour Market Data from 1985 to 2021 Open
This article describes the processing and accessibility of the person and establishment fixed wage effects in German administrative data. These effects have been estimated following the approach of Abowd, J., Kramarz, F., and Margolis, D. …