EHP: Discrimination, Segregation and Wage Differentials in Imperfect Labor Markets

摘要提案编号：0339149机构：波士顿大学NSF认证：增强人体免疫力CEPI： Lang，KevinTITLE：不完善劳动力市场中的歧视、隔离和工资差异。本研究项目探讨以利润为导向的企业对劳动力市场歧视的原因和后果。第一个项目始于一个令人困惑的事实，即非洲裔美国人比具有相同认知能力的白人接受更多的教育。本研究从理论和实证两方面探讨了两个解释性假设：（1）黑人就读的学校质量较低。黑人试图以较长的受教育年限来弥补低质量的教育。如果测量的认知能力受到教育的影响，那么较差的学校可能与较小的认知增益有关。初步的实证结果并不支持这一假设。(2)鉴于有关工人生产率的信息不完全，黑人比白人更有动机利用教育来表明他们作为工人的可取性。为了验证这一假设，本项目将探讨黑人和白人在信息结构上的差异（雇主更容易观察白人的生产率，而不是黑人的生产率）以及两组之间生产率分布的差异。模型将用NLSY数据进行检验。第二个项目处理以营利为目的的公司的歧视问题，这些公司必须寻找工人，而工人又必须寻找工作。它探讨了隔离之间的关系，工资歧视和就业歧视的背景下，直接搜索模型与不同类型的工人。该项目比较了基于肤色的歧视（一个连续因素）和基于种族的歧视（离散类别）的后果。它将拓宽我们对一类搜索模型的理解，在这些模型中，以利润为导向的雇主认识到更高的工资吸引更多的申请人。该方法将揭示在这种情况下工人异质性的影响。这项研究是潜在的重要影响，更广泛的劳动力市场政策。 对黑人接受更高水平的正规教育的不同解释（考虑到测量的认知能力）意味着提高人类表现的不同政策。雇主信息假说意味着黑人将过度投资于可观察到的证书，但投资不足的不可观察的技能，并建议，促进信息获取将是有价值的。学校质量假设表明，提高学校质量标准统一性的政策将更加有效。

ABSTRACTPROPOSAL NO: 0339149INSTITUTION: Boston UniversityNSF PROGRAM: ENHANCING HUMAN PERFORMANCEPI: Lang, KevinTITLE: Discrimination, Segregation and Wage Differentials in Imperfect Labor Markets.This research project explores the causes and consequences of labor-market discrimination by profit-oriented firms. The research consists of two projectsThe firs project starts with the puzzling fact that African Americans acquire more education than do whites with the same measured cognitive ability. This project theoretically and empirically explores two explanatory hypotheses: (1) blacks attend lower quality schools. Blacks attempt to compensate for lower quality education longer years of schooling. If measured cognitive ability is influenced by education, poorer schools may be associated with smaller cognitive gains. Preliminary empirical results do not support this hypothesis. (2) Given imperfect information about worker productivity, blacks have greater incentives than whites to use education to signal their desirability as workers. To test this hypothesis, this project will explore differences in information structure for blacks and whites (employers observe the productivity of whites more readily than they do the productivity of blacks) and differences in the distribution of productivity between the two groups. The models will be tested with NLSY data. The second project addresses discrimination by profit-oriented firms that must search for workers who in turn must search for jobs. It explores the relation between segregation, wage discrimination and employment discrimination in the context of directed-search models with different types of workers. This project compares the consequences of discrimination based on skin color (a continuous factor) with those based on race (discrete categories). It will broaden our understanding of a class of search models in which profit-oriented employers recognize that higher wages attract more applicants. The approach will cast light on the effects of worker heterogeneity in such settings.This research is potentially important for broader impacts on labor market policies. Different explanations for higher levels of formal education among blacks (given measured cognitive ability) imply different policies for enhancing human performance. Employer-information hypothesis implies that blacks will over-invest in observable credentials but under-invest in unobservable skills and suggests that facilitating of information acquisition would be valuable. The school-quality hypothesis suggests that policies that increase the uniformity of school-quality standards would be more effective.