Measurement error in human capital and the black-white wage gap
Measurement error in human capital and the black-white wage gap
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DOI：
10.1162/003465303322369731
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发表时间：
2003-08-01
影响因子：
8
通讯作者：
Bollinger, CR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bollinger, CR
代理变量在经济学中经常用于控制线性回归设置中不可用的变量。例如，在衡量黑人与白人的工资差异时，AFQT分数被用来控制人力资本积累。这种做法也可能使正确测量的变量的系数估计值产生偏差。本文将代理变量建模为一个测量误差过程，并在各种假设下推导出正确测量变量系数的界。结果表明，线性回归中的种族系数夸大了实际的黑人和白人工资差距。敏感性分析表明，如果人力资本可以被正确地衡量，那么黑色的系数就不太可能是负数。
Proxy variables are frequently used in economics to control for unavailable variables in a linear regression setting. For example, AFQT scores have been used to control for human capital accumulation in measuring black-white wage differentials. This practice may bias the coefficient estimates for the correctly measured variables as well. This paper models proxy variables as a measurement error process and derives bounds for the coefficients on the correctly measured variables under a variety of assumptions. The results show that the coefficient on race in a linear regression is an overstatement of the actual black-white wage gap. Sensitivity analysis suggests that if human capital could be correctly measured it would be unlikely that the coefficient on black would be negative.