IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v115y2025i12p4438-75.html

Changing Income Risk across the US Skill Distribution: Evidence from a Generalized Kalman Filter

Author

Listed:
  • J. Carter Braxton
  • Kyle Herkenhoff
  • Jonathan Rothbaum
  • Lawrence Schmidt

Abstract

For whom has earnings risk changed, and why? We answer these questions by combining the Kalman filter and EM algorithm to estimate persistent and temporary earnings for every individual at every point in time. We apply our method to administrative earnings linked with survey data. We show that since the 1980s, persistent earnings risk rose by 12.5 percent for both employed and unemployed workers and the scarring effects of unemployment doubled. At the same time, temporary earnings risk declined. Using education and occupation codes, we show that rising persistent earnings risk is concentrated among high-skill workers and related to technology adoption.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Carter Braxton & Kyle Herkenhoff & Jonathan Rothbaum & Lawrence Schmidt, 2025. "Changing Income Risk across the US Skill Distribution: Evidence from a Generalized Kalman Filter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 115(12), pages 4438-4475, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:115:y:2025:i:12:p:4438-75
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20231656
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20231656
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E231681V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24289
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24290
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aer.20231656?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. J. Carter Braxton & Bledi Taska, 2025. "Technological Change and Insuring Job Loss," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 58, October.
    3. Ariel Mecikovsky & Felix Wellschmied, 2025. "Wage Risk, Employment Risk, And The Rise In Wage Inequality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 66(2), pages 567-594, May.
    4. Freund, L. B., 2022. "Superstar Teams," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2276, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Robert Moffitt & John Abowd & Christopher Bollinger & Michael Carr & Charles Hokayem & Kevin McKinney & Emily Wiemers & Sisi Zhang & James Ziliak, 2022. "Reconciling Trends in U.S. Male Earnings Volatility: Results from Survey and Administrative Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Yunho Cho & James Morley & Aarti Singh, 2024. "Did marginal propensities to consume change with the housing boom and bust?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(1), pages 174-199, January.
    7. J. Carter Braxton & Bledi Taska, 2023. "Technological Change and the Consequences of Job Loss," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(2), pages 279-316, February.
    8. Gu, Shijun & Jia, Chengcheng, 2023. "A comment on “wealth inequality and endogenous growth” by Byoungchan Lee," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 149-155.
    9. Krueger, Dirk & Uhlig, Harald, 2023. "Neoclassical growth with long-term one-sided commitment contracts," CFS Working Paper Series 698, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    10. Dirk Krueger & Harald Uhlig, 2022. "Neoclassical Growth with Limited Commitment," NBER Working Papers 30518, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Juan M. Sanchez & Stefan Song, 2025. "Earnings Misperceptions and Household Distress," Working Papers 2025-030, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised 12 Nov 2025.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • 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
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    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:115:y:2025:i:12:p:4438-75. 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.