IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v93y2003i4p1114-1131.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Interpreting Aggregate Wage Growth: The Role of Labor Market Participation

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Blundell
  • Howard Reed
  • Thomas M. Stoker

Abstract

A new and easily implementable framework for the empirical analysis of the relationship between aggregate and individual wages is developed. Aggregate real wages are shown to contain three important bias terms: one associated with the dispersion of individual wages, a second deriving from compositional changes in the (selected) sample of workers, and a third reflecting the distribution of working hours. Their importance for interpreting the path of aggregate wages and of the returns to education for recent experience in Britain is highlighted. A close correspondence between the estimated biases and the patterns of differences shown by aggregate wages is established. (JEL C34, E24, J31)

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Blundell & Howard Reed & Thomas M. Stoker, 2003. "Interpreting Aggregate Wage Growth: The Role of Labor Market Participation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1114-1131, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:93:y:2003:i:4:p:1114-1131
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/000282803769206223
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/000282803769206223
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/blundell_data.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card & Thomas Lemieux, 2001. "Can Falling Supply Explain the Rising Return to College for Younger Men? A Cohort-Based Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 705-746.
    2. Robinson, Peter M, 1988. "Root- N-Consistent Semiparametric Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 931-954, July.
    3. Gary Solon & Robert Barsky & Jonathan A. Parker, 1994. "Measuring the Cyclicality of Real Wages: How Important is Composition Bias?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 1-25.
    4. Cogan, John F, 1981. "Fixed Costs and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 945-963, June.
    5. Ahn, Hyungtaik & Powell, James L., 1993. "Semiparametric estimation of censored selection models with a nonparametric selection mechanism," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 3-29, July.
    6. Newey, Whitney K & Powell, James L & Walker, James R, 1990. "Semiparametric Estimation of Selection Models: Some Empirical Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 324-328, May.
    7. Bils, Mark J, 1985. "Real Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(4), pages 666-689, August.
    8. Amanda Gosling & Stephen Machin & Costas Meghir, 2000. "The Changing Distribution of Male Wages in the U.K," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 635-666.
    9. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-694, July.
    10. W. Lee Hansen, 1970. "Education, Income, and Human Capital," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hans70-1, March.
    11. A. D. Roy, 1951. "Some Thoughts On The Distribution Of Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 135-146.
    12. Heckman, James J & Sedlacek, Guilherme, 1985. "Heterogeneity, Aggregation, and Market Wage Functions: An Empirical Model of Self-selection in the Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(6), pages 1077-1125, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. James J. Heckman, 2005. "Micro Data, Heterogeneity and the Evaluation of Public Policy Part 2," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 49(1), pages 16-44, March.
    2. Manuel Arellano & Stéphane Bonhomme, 2017. "Quantile Selection Models With an Application to Understanding Changes in Wage Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 1-28, January.
    3. J. B. Engberg & T. Kim, "undated". "Person or Place? Parametric and semiparametric estimates of intrametropolitan earnings variation," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1089-96, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    4. Cyrus Farsian, 2011. "The Fallacy of Composition Bias in the RealWage Cyclicality Puzzle," Studies in Economics 1116, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    5. Richard Blundell & Amanda Gosling & Hidehiko Ichimura & Costas Meghir, 2007. "Changes in the Distribution of Male and Female Wages Accounting for Employment Composition Using Bounds," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 323-363, March.
    6. Philipp Eisenhauer & James J. Heckman & Edward Vytlacil, 2015. "The Generalized Roy Model and the Cost-Benefit Analysis of Social Programs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(2), pages 413-443.
    7. Keane, Michael P. & Todd, Petra E. & Wolpin, Kenneth I., 2011. "The Structural Estimation of Behavioral Models: Discrete Choice Dynamic Programming Methods and Applications," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 4, pages 331-461, Elsevier.
    8. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2000. "The Scientific Contributions of James Heckman and Daniel McFadden," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2000-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    9. Boehm, Michael J., 2013. "Has job polarization squeezed the middle class? Evidence from the allocation of talents," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51554, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Michael J. Boehm, 2013. "Has Job Polarization Squeezed the Middle Class? Evidence from the Allocation of Talents," CEP Discussion Papers dp1215, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Masayuki Hirukawa & Di Liu & Irina Murtazashvili & Artem Prokhorov, 2023. "DS-HECK: double-lasso estimation of Heckman selection model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(6), pages 3167-3195, June.
    12. Haoming Liu, 2003. "A cross-country comparison of the cyclicality of real wages," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 36(4), pages 923-948, November.
    13. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae (Simon) Lee, 2005. "Ability, sorting and wage inequality," CeMMAP working papers CWP16/05, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    14. Donggyun Shin, 1999. "An Equilibrium Theory of Wage and Employment Cyclicality by Gender and by Industry," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(3), pages 451-471, January.
    15. Jacopo Mazza, 2012. "Does Risk Matter? A Semi-parametric Model for Educational Choices in the Presence of Uncertainty," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1225, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    16. Claudia PIGINI, 2012. "Of Butterflies and Caterpillars: Bivariate Normality in the Sample Selection Model," Working Papers 377, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    17. Ismaël Mourifié & Marc Henry & Romuald Méango, 2020. "Sharp Bounds and Testability of a Roy Model of STEM Major Choices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(8), pages 3220-3283.
    18. Lanot, Gauthier & Walker, Ian, 1998. "The union/non-union wage differential: An application of semi-parametric methods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 327-349, June.
    19. Paul Ellickson & Sanjog Misra, 2012. "Enriching interactions: Incorporating outcome data into static discrete games," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-26, March.
    20. Jean-Marc Robin & Costas Meghir & Christian Dustmann & Jerome Adda, 2013. "Career Progression, Economic Downturns, and Skills," 2013 Meeting Papers 993, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C34 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Interpreting Aggregate Wage Growth: The Role of Labor Market Participation (AER 2003) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:aea:aecrev:v:93:y:2003:i:4:p:1114-1131. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.