Search Results
Working Paper
Displacement, asymmetric information and heterogeneous human capital
In a seminal paper Gibbons and Katz (1991; GK) develop and empirically test an asymmetric information model of the labor market. The model predicts that wage losses following displacement should be larger for layoffs than for plant closings, which was borne out by data from the Displaced Workers Survey (DWS). In this paper, we take advantage of many more years of DWS data to examine how the difference in wage losses across plant closing and layoff varies with race and gender. We find that the differences between white males and the other groups are striking and complex. The "lemons" effect ...
Journal Article
Does affirmative action work?
After four decades, we are still debating how much impact affirmative action can and should have on opportunities and outcomes at work.
Journal Article
Gender wage gap may be much smaller than most think
Working Paper
The role of location in evaluating racial wage disparity
A standard object of empirical analysis in labor economics is a modified Mincer wage function in which an individual's log wage is specified to be a function of education, experience, and an indicator variable identifying race. Researchers hope that estimates from this exercise can be informative about the impact of minority status on labor market success. Here we set out a theoretical justification for this regression in a context in which individuals live and work in different locations. Our model leads to the traditional approach, but with the important caveat that the regression should ...
Working Paper
Does science discriminate against women? Evidence from academia, 1973–97
This study uses data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients to evaluate differences in employment outcomes for academic scientists by gender. A decomposition of estimated salary differences shows that over time, gender salary differences can partly be explained by differences in observable characteristics for faculty at the assistant and associate ranks. Substantial gender salary differences for full professors are not explained by observable characteristics. Probit and duration model estimates indicate gender differences in the probability of promotion, making it less likely for women to be ...
Working Paper
Decomposing the gender wage gap with sample selection adjustment: evidence from Colombia
Despite the remarkable improvement of female labor market characteristics, a sizeable gender wage gap exists in Colombia. We employ quantile regression techniques to examine the degree to which current small differences in the distribution of observable characteristics can explain the gender gap. We find that the gap is largely explained by gender differences in the rewards to labor market characteristics and not by differences in the distribution of characteristics. We claim that Colombian women experience both a ?glass ceiling effect?? and also (what we call) a ?quicksand floor effect? ...
Working Paper
Gender differences in salary and promotion for faculty in the humanities, 1977–95
This study uses data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients to evaluate gender differences in salaries and promotion for academics in the humanities. Differences in employment outcomes by gender are evaluated using three methods: the Oaxaca decomposition is used to examine salary differentials, and binary choice models and duration analysis are used to estimate the probability of promotion to tenure. Over time, gender salary differences can largely be explained by academic rank. Substantial gender differences in promotion to tenure exist after controlling for productivity and demographic ...
Working Paper
Race, wages, and assimilation among Cuban immigrants
This study uses data from the 1980 and 1990 Census and the 1994-2000 Current Population Survey to examine the determinants of earnings among male Cuban immigrants in the United States by race. Nonwhite Cuban immigrants earn about 15 percent less than whites, on average. Much of the racial wage gap is due to differences in educational attainment, age at migration, and years in the United States, but the gap remains at almost 4 percent after controlling for such factors. Nonwhite Cuban immigrants also have lower returns to education than whites. A comparison to white, non-Hispanic U.S. natives ...
Working Paper
The effects of official English laws on limited-English-proficient workers
Workers with limited English skills may suffer adverse effects in the labor market when states declare English the official language. If employers view official English laws as allowing or requiring them to adopt workplace English-only rules that lower the demand for limited-English-proficient workers, such laws may harm individuals who do not speak English very well. Using data from the 1980 and 1990 Census, I estimate whether the earnings and other labor market outcomes of workers who have limited English proficiency and live in states that adopted official English laws declined relative to ...
Working Paper
Which industries are the best employers for women? an application of a new Equal Employment Opportunity Index
This paper introduces and proposes a policy application for a new Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Index. The index is comprised of multiple measures of employers' human resource management outcomes and is designed to reflect employers' systemic EEO efforts. The index is applied to industry data from the Current Population Survey, and the tenets of Total Quality Management (TQM) theory are used for interpretation of results. It is found that the mining/construction industry provides a relatively inhospitable climate for women in the form, primarily, of a high degree of gender-related ...