IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfer/y1997p16-32n1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of industry employment shifts on U.S. wage structure, 1979-1995

Author

Listed:
  • Robert G. Valletta

Abstract

The trend toward increasing U.S. wage inequality during the 1980s is well documented. I investigate the role of employment shifts from goods-producing to service-producing industries in contributing to increased inequality during the period 1979-1995. Earlier analyses revealed that average earnings are lower, and earnings inequality is higher, for service-producing workers than for goods-producing workers. For both reasons, and increasing share of service employment may increase earnings inequality. I analyses the effect of broad industry employment shifts by using a recently developed statistical technique, which I term \"conditionally weighted density estimation.\" This technique enables investigation of the effects of changing industry employment shares on the complete distribution of earnings, conditional on changes in other earnings-related characteristics. The results show at most a small effect of industry employment shifts on growing inequality in male hourly earnings.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert G. Valletta, 1997. "The effects of industry employment shifts on U.S. wage structure, 1979-1995," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 16-32.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfer:y:1997:p:16-32:n:1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/econrsrch/econrev/97-1/16-32.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Max Dupuy & Mark E. Schweitzer, 1995. "Sectoral wage convergence: a nonparametric distributional analysis," Working Papers (Old Series) 9520, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    2. Karoly, Lynn A, 1996. "Anatomy of the US Income Distribution: Two Decades of Change," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 12(1), pages 76-95, Spring.
    3. Levy, Frank & Murnane, Richard J, 1992. "U.S. Earnings Levels and Earnings Inequality: A Review of Recent Trends and Proposed Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1333-1381, September.
    4. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M & Pierce, Brooks, 1993. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 410-442, June.
    5. Karoly, L.A., 1996. "Anatomy of the US Income Distribution: Two Decades of Change," Papers 96-07, RAND - Reprint Series.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ipek Ilkaracan & Raziye Selim, 2002. "The Role of Unemployment in Wage Determination: Further Evidence on the Wage Curve from Turkey," SCEPA working paper series. 2002-11, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard V. Burkhauser & Amy Crews Cutts & Mary C. Daly & Stephen P. Jenkins, 1999. "Testing the significance of income distribution changes over the 1980s business cycle: a cross‐national comparison," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 253-272, May.
    2. Bresnahan, Timothy F, 1999. "Computerisation and Wage Dispersion: An Analytical Reinterpretation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(456), pages 390-415, June.
    3. Stephen J. Trejo, 2003. "Intergenerational Progress of Mexican-Origin Workers in the U.S. Labor Market," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(3).
    4. Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2009. "Using The P90/P10 Index To Measure U.S. Inequality Trends With Current Population Survey Data: A View From Inside The Census Bureau Vaults," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(1), pages 166-185, March.
    5. John M. Abowd & Kevin L. McKinney & Nellie L. Zhao, 2018. "Earnings Inequality and Mobility Trends in the United States: Nationally Representative Estimates from Longitudinally Linked Employer-Employee Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 183-300.
    6. Verdugo, G. & Fraisse, H. & Horny, G., 2012. "Changes In Wage Inequality In France: The Impact Of Composition Effects (in French)," Working papers 370, Banque de France.
    7. Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia & Stevens, David, 1997. "Jobs, Workers and Changes in Earnings Dispersion," CEPR Discussion Papers 1714, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Jaynes, Gerald D., 2011. "Social Policy and U.S. Poverty 1960-1999: An Economic History," Working Papers 90, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    9. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1279-1333.
    10. Marigee Bacolod & V. Joseph Hotz, 2005. "Cohort Changes in the Transition from School to Work: What Changed and What Consequences Did it have for Wages?," Working Papers 050618, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    11. Juan José Diaz, 2003. "Evolución de la estructura de ingresos relativos en Lima Metropolitana: un análisis de los factores de oferta y de demanda, 1986-1995," Investigaciones Breves (CIES-GRADE) ciesib11, Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE);Consorcio de Investigación Económica y Social (CIES).
    12. Wasmer, Etienne, 2001. "Between-group Competition in the Labor Market and the Rising Returns to Skill: US and France 1964-2000," IZA Discussion Papers 292, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "What Do We Really Know About Changes in Wage Inequality?," NBER Chapters, in: Labor in the New Economy, pages 17-59, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Wenxiao Wang & Christopher Findlay & Shandre Thangavelu, 2021. "Trade, technology, and the labour market: impacts on wage inequality within countries," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 35(1), pages 19-35, May.
    15. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "Unequal We Stand: An Empirical Analysis of Economic Inequality in the United States: 1967-2006," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 15-51, January.
    16. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    17. Patricia Smith, 1994. "Recent patterns in downward income mobility: Sinking boats in a rising tide," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 277-303, March.
    18. Acemoglu, Daron, 1997. "Matching, Heterogeneity, and the Evolution of Income Distribution," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 61-92, March.
    19. Katharine G. Abraham & James R. Spletzer & Jay C. Stewart, 1998. "Divergent Trends in Alternative Wage Series," NBER Chapters, in: Labor Statistics Measurement Issues, pages 293-325, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. David S. Loughran, 2000. "Does Variance Matter? The Effect of Rising Male Inequality on Female Age at First Marriage," Working Papers 00-12, RAND Corporation.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedfer:y:1997:p:16-32:n:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.