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Anatomy of Lifetime Earnings Inequality: Heterogeneity in Job Ladder Risk vs. Human Capital
Ozkan, Serdar; Song, Jae; Karahan, Fatih (2019-12-01)
We study the determinants of lifetime earnings (LE) inequality in the United States, for which differences in lifetime earnings growth are key. Using administrative data and focusing on the roles of job ladder dynamics and on-the-job learning, we document that 1) lower LE workers change jobs more often, mainly driven by higher nonemployment; 2) earnings growth for job stayers is similar at around 2 percent in the bottom two-thirds of the LE distribution, whereas for job switchers it rises with LE; and 3) top LE workers enjoy high earnings growth regardless of job switching. We estimate a job ...
Staff Reports , Paper 908

Working Paper
Skilled Tradable Services: The Transformation of U.S. High-Skill Labor Markets
Eckert, Fabian; Ganapati, Sharat; Walsh, Conor (2019-09-13)
We study a group of service industries that are skill-intensive, widely traded, and have recently seen explosive wage growth. Between 1980 and 2015, these ?Skilled Tradable Services? accounted for a sharply increasing share of employment among the highest earning Americans. Unlike any other sector, their wage growth was strongly biased toward the densest local labor markets and the highest paying firms. These services alone explain 30% of the increase in inequality between the 50th and 90th percentiles of the wage distribution. We offer an explanation for these patterns that highlights the ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 25

Working Paper
The Return to Big City Experience: Evidence from Danish Refugees
Eckert, Fabian; Hejlesen, Mads; Walsh, Conor (2019-08-13)
We offer causal evidence of higher returns to experience in big cities. Exploiting a natural experiment that settled political refugees across labor markets in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find that while refugees initially earn similar wages across locations, those placed in Copenhagen exhibit 35% faster wage growth with each additional year of experience. This gap is driven primarily by differential sorting towards high-wage establishments, occupations, and industries. An estimated spatial model of earnings dynamics attributes an important role to unobserved worker ability: more able ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 24

Working Paper
Cyclical Labor Income Risk
Nakajima, Makoto; Smirnyagin, Vladimir (2019-08-05)
We investigate cyclicality of variance and skewness of household labor income risk using PSID data. There are five main findings. First, we find that head's labor income exhibits countercyclical variance and procyclical skewness. Second, the cyclicality of hourly wages is mutted, suggesting that head's labor income risk is mainly coming from the volatility of hours. Third, younger households face stronger cyclicality of income volatility than older ones, although the level of volatility is lower for the younger ones. Fourth, while a second earner helps lower the level of skewness, it does not ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 22

Working Paper
Pay, Employment, and Dynamics of Young Firms
Babina, Tania; Ma, Wenting; Moser, Christian; Ouimet, Paige P.; Zarutskie, Rebecca (2019-08-05)
Why do young firms pay less? Using confidential microdata from the US Census Bureau, we find lower earnings among workers at young firms. However, we argue that such measurement is likely subject to worker and firm selection. Exploiting the two-sided panel nature of the data to control for relevant dimensions of worker and firm heterogeneity, we uncover a positive and significant young-firm pay premium. Furthermore, we show that worker selection at firm birth is related to future firm dynamics, including survival and growth. We tie our empirical findings to a simple model of pay, employment, ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 21

Working Paper
Wage Inequality and Job Stability
Pessoa de Araujo, Ana Luisa (2017-12-05)
How much wage inequality in Brazil is caused by firing costs? To answer this question, I develop and estimate a general equilibrium search and matching model with heterogeneous layoff rates among firms. Using matched employer-employee data from Brazil, I estimate the model, and I find that it replicates the observed residual wage inequality in the data. I simulate a counterfactual removal of existing firing costs, and I find that residual wage inequality drops by 26% as measured by wage variance and by 4.4% as measured by the p95-p5 ratio among 25- to 55-year-old males working in the private ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 5

Working Paper
Earnings Inequality and the Minimum Wage: Evidence from Brazil
Engbom, Niklas; Moser, Christian (2018-03-12)
We show that an increase in the minimum wage can have large effects throughout the earnings distribution, using a combination of theory and evidence. To this end, we develop an equilibrium search model featuring empirically relevant worker and firm heterogeneity. The minimum wage induces firms to adjust their equilibrium wage and vacancy policies, leading to spillovers on higher wages. We use the estimated model to evaluate the effects of a 119 percent increase in the real minimum wage in Brazil from 1996 to 2012. The policy change explains a large decline in earnings inequality, with ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 7

Working Paper
Dynamic Responses to Immigration
Colas, Mark (2018-01-29)
I analyze the dynamic effects of immigration by estimating an equilibrium model of local labor markets in the US. The model includes firms in multiple cities and sectors which combine capital, skilled and unskilled labor in production, and forward-looking workers who choose their sector and location each period as a dynamic discrete choice. A counterfactual unskilled immigration inflow leads to an initial wage drop for unskilled workers and a wage increase for skilled workers. These effects dissipate rapidly as unskilled workers migrate away from heavily affected cities and workers shift ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 6

Working Paper
Heterogeneous Workers and Federal Income Taxes in a Spatial Equilibrium
Colas, Mark; Hutchinson, Kevin (2017-11-14)
This paper studies the incidence and efficiency of a progressive income tax in a spatial equilibrium. We use US census data to estimate an empirical spatial equilibrium with heterogeneous workers, landowners, and firms. The US income tax shifts skilled workers out of high-productivity cities, leading to a deadweight loss of 2% of tax revenue. Flattening the tax schedule significantly increases welfare inequality between skilled and unskilled workers and does not increase overall worker welfare, as the efficiency gains are captured by landowners. This suggests that progressive income taxes ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 3

Working Paper
Which Ladder to Climb? Wages of Workers by Job, Plant, and Education
Bayer, Christian; Kuhn, Moritz (2018-09-12)
Wages grow but also become more unequal as workers age. Using German administrative data, we largely attribute both life-cycle facts to one driving force: some workers progress in hierarchy to jobs with more responsibility, complexity, and independence. In short, they climb the career ladder. Climbing the career ladder explains 50% of wage growth and virtually all of rising wage dispersion. The increasing gender wage gap by age parallels a rising hierarchy gap. Our findings suggest that wage dynamics are shaped by the organization of production, which itself likely depends on technology, the ...
Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers , Paper 15

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