IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v7y2015i3p221-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Product Demand on Inequality: Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Leonardi

Abstract

Using Consumer Expenditure Survey data this paper shows that more educated workers demand more high-skill-intensive services and, to a lesser extent, more very low-skill-intensive services (such as personal services). Additional evidence at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level shows that this "education elasticity of demand" mechanism can explain part of the correlation between the share of college-educated workers in a city and the employment share of service industries. The parametrization of a simple model suggests that this induced demand shift can explain around 6.5 percent of the relative demand shift in the United States between 1984 and 2002. Similar results are provided for the United Kingdom. (JEL D12, J24, J31, L84)

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Leonardi, 2015. "The Effect of Product Demand on Inequality: Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 221-247, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:7:y:2015:i:3:p:221-47
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.20130359
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.20130359
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/ds/0703/2013-0359_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/0703/2013-0359_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/app/0703/2013-0359_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Fabio Cerina & Elisa Dienesch & Alessio Moro & Michelle Rendall, 2023. "Spatial Polarisation," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(649), pages 30-69.
    2. Shim, Myungkyu & Yang, Hee-Seung, 2018. "Interindustry wage differentials, technology adoption, and job polarization," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 141-160.
    3. Comin, Diego & Mestieri, Martí & Danieli, Ana, 2020. "Income-Driven Labor Market Polarization," CEPR Discussion Papers 14980, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Charles M. Beach, 2016. "Changing income inequality: A distributional paradigm for Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 1229-1292, November.
    5. Roupakias, Stelios, 2023. "Employment polarization: evidence from regions in Greece," MPRA Paper 118696, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Michael Chletsos & Stelios Roupakias, 2020. "Education and wage inequality before and during the fiscal crisis: A quantile regression analysis for Greece 2006–2016," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 1333-1364, November.
    7. Murphy, Daniel, 2016. "Welfare consequences of asymmetric growth," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PA), pages 1-17.
    8. Rotunno, Lorenzo & Wood, Adrian, 2020. "Wage inequality and skill supplies in a globalised world," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 529-547.
    9. Morten Olsen & Joshua Gottlieb & David Hemous & Jeffrey Clemens, 2017. "The Spill-over Effects of Top Income Inequality," 2017 Meeting Papers 332, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. David Autor & Caroline Chin & Anna M. Salomons & Bryan Seegmiller, 2022. "New Frontiers: The Origins and Content of New Work, 1940–2018," NBER Working Papers 30389, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Garcia-Louzao, Jose & Tarasonis, Linas, 2023. "Wage and Employment Impact of Minimum Wage: Evidence from Lithuania," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 592-609.
    12. Lee, Jongkwan & Shim, Myungkyu & Yang, Hee-Seung, 2022. "The rise of low-skill service employment: The role of dual-earner households," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 255-273.
    13. Diego Comin & Ana Danieli & Marti Mestieri, 2019. "Demand-Driven Labor-Market Polarization," 2019 Meeting Papers 1398, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Anthony Eisenbarth & Zhuo Fu Chen, 2022. "The evolution of wage inequality within local U.S. labor markets," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 56(1), pages 1-25, December.
    15. Lorenzo Rotunno & Adrian Wood, 2015. "Wages and endowments in a globalised world," Economics Papers 2015-W11, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    16. Mario Reinhold, 2016. "On the Link between Job Polarisation and Wage Inequality - A regional approach for Germany," ERSA conference papers ersa16p361, European Regional Science Association.
    17. Reinhold, Mario, 2016. "On the Link between Job Polarisation and Wage Inequality in Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145802, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • L84 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Personal, Professional, and Business Services

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. The Effect of Product Demand on Inequality: Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2015) 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:aejapp:v:7:y:2015:i:3:p:221-47. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.