[PDF] Sources Of Wage Dispersion eBook

Author : Dale Mortensen
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 170 pages
File Size : 34,39 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780262633192

GET BOOK

A theoretical and empirical examination of wage differentials findsthat traditional theories of competition do not explain why workers with identical skills are paid differently.

Author : Steven J. Davis
Publisher :
Page : 90 pages
File Size : 33,60 MB
Release : 1991
Category : Manufactures
ISBN :

GET BOOK

This paper exploits a rich and largely untapped source of information on the wages and other characteristics of individual manufacturing plants to cast new light on recent changes in the United States wage structure. Our primary data source, the Longitudinal Research Datafile (LRD) , contains observations on more than 300,000 manufacturing plants during Census years (1963, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982) and 50,000-70,000 plants during intercensus years since 1972. We use the information in the LRD to investigate changes in the plant-wage structure over the past three decades. We also combine plant-level wage observations in the LRD with wage observations on individual workers in the Current Population Survey (CPS) to estimate the between-plant and within-plant components of overall wage dispersion.

Author :
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 16,2 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Unemployment
ISBN :

GET BOOK

Standard search and matching models of equilibrium unemployment, once properly calibrated, can generate only a small amount of frictional wage dispersion, i.e., wage differentials among ex-ante similar workers induced purely by search frictions. We derive this result for a specific measure of wage dispersion -- the ratio between the average wage and the lowest (reservation) wage paid. We show that in a large class of search and matching models this statistic (the "mean-min ratio") can be obtained in closed form as a function of observable variables (i.e., the interest rate, the value of leisure, and statistics of labor market turnover). Various independent data sources suggest that actual residual wage dispersion (i.e., inequality among observationally similar workers) exceeds the model's prediction by a factor of 20. We discuss three extensions of the model (risk aversion, volatile wages during employment, and on-the-job search) and find that, in their simplest versions, they can improve its performance, but only modestly. We conclude that either frictions account for a tiny fraction of residual wage dispersion, or the standard model needs to be augmented to confront the data. In particular, the last generation of models with on-the-job search appears promising.

Author : Damien Gaumont
Publisher : International Monetary Fund
Page : 30 pages
File Size : 39,28 MB
Release : 2005
Category : Labor market
ISBN :

GET BOOK

We analyze labor market models where the law of one price does not hold-that is, models with equilibrium wage dispersion. We begin by assuming workers are ex ante heterogeneous, and highlight a flaw with this approach: if search is costly, the market shuts down. We then assume workers are homogeneous, but matches are ex post heterogeneous. This model is robust to search costs, and it delivers equilibrium wage dispersion. However, we prove the law of two prices holds: generically, we cannot get more than two wages. We explore several other models, including one combining ex ante and ex post heterogeneity, which is robust and can deliver more than two-point wage distributions.

Author : Robert Ernest Hall
Publisher :
Page : 55 pages
File Size : 30,5 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Job hunting
ISBN :

GET BOOK

We use a rich new body of data on the experiences of unemployed job-seekers to determine the sources of wage dispersion and to create a search model consistent with the acceptance decisions the job-seekers made. From the data and the model, we identify the distributions of four key variables: offered wages, offered non-wage job values, the value of the job-seeker's non-work alternative, and the job-seeker's personal productivity. We find that, conditional on personal productivity, the dispersion of offered wages is moderate, accounting for 21 percent of the total variation in observed offered wages, whereas the dispersion of the non-wage component of offered job values is substantially larger. We relate our findings to an influential recent paper by Hornstein, Krusell, and Violante who called attention to the tension between the fairly high dispersion of the values job-seekers assign to their job offers--which suggest a high value to sampling from multiple offers--and the fact that the job-seekers often accept the first offer they receive.