Sources of Wage Inequality

研究单位：美国西北大学国家科学基金项目：经济学项目负责人：Taber， Christopher题目：工资不平等的来源摘要工资不平等的来源和后果既是一个重要的学术问题，也是一个重要的政策问题。经济学中关于毕业后工资决定的四个最重要的模型是人力资本模型、罗伊模型、补偿差异模型和搜索模型。罗伊模型的关键方面是比较优势，其中一些工人在进入劳动力市场时由于不同的技能水平而比其他人赚得更多。工人们选择能使他们获得最高收入的工作。相比之下，在补偿性工资差异模型中，工人愿意拿更少的工资，以从事他们更喜欢的工作。因此，具有相同才能的工人可以获得不同的工资。最后，工人们可能在找到理想工作方面运气不好。这种类型的搜索摩擦也会导致收入的异质性，因为一些工人可能会为工资更高的公司工作。研究工资异质性的研究人员通常强调一种模型。虽然将人力资本积累与其他因素分开是相当普遍的，但我们对其他三个不平等来源的相对重要性却知之甚少。因此，不可能推断出每种工资异质性解释的相对重要性。提出的目标是通过开发和估计包含工资不平等的所有四种解释的工资异质性结构模型，揭示这些不同组成部分对总体收入不平等的贡献。项目的智力价值来自以下四个活动。本研究将推导出第一个实证可实现的收入不平等结构模型，该模型包含了劳动经济学中的四大就业岗位工资模型、人力资本模型、罗伊模型、补偿差异模型和搜索模型。它将展示如何根据我们所掌握的数据类型唯一地识别模型的参数。使用独特的个人数据集，该模型将用最新和适当的计量经济学技术进行估计。最后，模型的估计参数将用于揭示工资不平等的四个来源的相对重要性。这项研究的结果将在几个方向上产生更广泛的影响。例如，本研究项目的结果将提供基于经验的框架，可用于理解许多劳动力市场现象。本研究的结果可以提高我们对低收入劳动力市场政策的理解。如果目标是消除收入不平等，那么这四种模型具有非常不同的政策含义。

Proposal No: 0617438 Institution: Northwestern University NSF Program: ECONOMICS Principal Investigator: Taber, Christopher Title: Sources of Wage Inequality ABSTRACTThe sources and consequences of wage inequality are of both academic interest and an important policy issue. The four most important models of post-schooling wage determination in economics are human capital, the Roy model, the compensating differentials model, and the search model. The key aspect of the Roy model is comparative advantage in which some workers earn more than others as a result of different skill levels at labor market entry. Workers choose the job for which they achieve the highest level of earnings. By contrast, in a compensating wage differentials model a worker is willing to be paid less in order to work on a job that they enjoy more. Thus, workers with identical talent can earn different salaries. Finally, workers may have had poor luck in finding their ideal job. This type of search friction can also lead to heterogeneity in earnings as some workers may work for higher wage firms. Researchers on wage heterogeneity have generally emphasized one model over others. While separating human capital accumulation from the others is quite common, we know surprisingly little about the relative importance of the other three sources of inequality. Thus, it is not possible to infer the relative importance of each of these explanations of wage heterogeneity. The goal of the proposed is to uncover the contribution of these different components to overall earnings inequality by developing and estimating a structural model of wage heterogeneity that encompasses all four explanations of wage inequality.The intellectual merit of the project arises from the following four activities. This research will derive the first empirically implementable structural model of earnings inequality containing the four major post schooling wage models in labor economics, human capital, the Roy model, the compensating differentials model, and the search model. It will show how the parameters of the model can be uniquely identified from the type of data at our disposal. Using a unique data set on individuals, the model will be estimated with the latest and appropriate econometric techniques. Finally, the estimated parameters of the model will be used to uncover the relative importance of the four sources of wage inequality. The results of this research will have broader impacts in several directions. For example, the results of this research project will provide empirically grounded frameworks that can be used to understand a number of labor market phenomena. The results of this research could improve our understanding of low income labor market policy. If the goal is to counteract earnings inequality, the four models have very different policy implications.