IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ier/iecrev/v43y2002i4p1309-1345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Discrimination and Skill Differences in an Equilibrium Search Model

Author

Listed:
  • Audra J. Bowlus

    (University of Western Ontario, Canada; Tel Aviv University, Israel, University of Minnesota, U.S.A.)

  • Zvi Eckstein

    (University of Western Ontario, Canada; Tel Aviv University, Israel, University of Minnesota, U.S.A.)

Abstract

We analyze an equilibrium search model with three sources for wage and unemployment differentials among workers with the same (observed) human capital but different appearance (race): unobserved productivity, search intensities, and discrimination due to an appearance-based employer disutility factor. We show that the structural parameters are identified using labor market survey data. Estimation results for a black and white high school graduate sample imply: black productivity is 3.3% lower than white productivity; the employer's disutility factor is 31% of the white's productivity level; and 56% of firms have a disutility factor toward blacks. Copyright 2002 by the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association

Suggested Citation

  • Audra J. Bowlus & Zvi Eckstein, 2002. "Discrimination and Skill Differences in an Equilibrium Search Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1309-1345, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:ier:iecrev:v:43:y:2002:i:4:p:1309-1345
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://openurl.ingenta.com/content?genre=article&issn=0020-6598&volume=43&spage=1309
    Download Restriction: Free access to full text is restricted to Ingenta subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henry G. Manne, 1969. "Economic Policy and the Regulation of Corporate Securities," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 917976, September.
    2. Bowlus, Audra J, 1997. "A Search Interpretation of Male-Female Wage Differentials," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(4), pages 625-657, October.
    3. Sattinger, Michael, 1998. "Statistical Discrimination with Employment Criteria," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(1), pages 205-237, February.
    4. Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "Breach of Trust in Hostile Takeovers," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences, pages 33-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. C, Bontemps & Jean-Marc Robin & G, Van Den Berg, 1997. "Equilibrium Search with Productivity Dispersion : Theory and Estimation," Working Papers 97-09, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    6. Black, Dan A, 1995. "Discrimination in an Equilibrium Search Model," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 309-333, April.
    7. Jensen, Michael C. & Ruback, Richard S., 1983. "The market for corporate control : The scientific evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1-4), pages 5-50, April.
    8. Alan J. Auerbach, 1988. "Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number auer88-1, October.
    9. Boycko, Maxim & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1997. "Privatizing Russia," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522284, December.
    10. Stanley L. Engerman & Robert E. Gallman, 1986. "Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number enge86-1, October.
    11. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    12. Gerard J. van den Berg & Geert Ridder, 1998. "An Empirical Equilibrium Search Model of the Labor Market," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(5), pages 1183-1222, September.
    13. Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1994. "Politicians and Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 995-1025.
    14. John J. Wallis & Douglass North, 1986. "Measuring the Transaction Sector in the American Economy, 1870-1970," NBER Chapters, in: Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, pages 95-162, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Bowlus, Audra J & Kiefer, Nicholas M & Neumann, George R, 1995. "Estimation of Equilibrium Wage Distributions with Heterogeneity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(S), pages 119-131, Suppl. De.
    16. van den Berg, Gerard J, 1999. "Empirical Inference with Equilibrium Search Models of the Labour Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(456), pages 283-306, June.
    17. Donohue, John J, III & Heckman, James, 1991. "Continuous versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1603-1643, December.
    18. Neal, Derek A & Johnson, William R, 1996. "The Role of Premarket Factors in Black-White Wage Differences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 869-895, October.
    19. Roll, Richard, 1986. "The Hubris Hypothesis of Corporate Takeovers," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 197-216, April.
    20. Sanford J. Grossman & Oliver D. Hart, 1980. "Takeover Bids, the Free-Rider Problem, and the Theory of the Corporation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(1), pages 42-64, Spring.
    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. Terry Sicular, 1998. "Capital Flight and Foreign Investment: Two Tales From China and Russia," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(5), pages 589-602, July.
    2. Mike Burkart & Samuel Lee, 2008. "One Share - One Vote: the Theory," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(1), pages 1-49.
    3. Luca Flabbi, 2010. "Gender Discrimination Estimation In A Search Model With Matching And Bargaining," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(3), pages 745-783, August.
    4. Nenova, Tatiana, 2006. "Takeover laws and financial development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4029, The World Bank.
    5. Moerland, Pieter W., 1995. "Alternative disciplinary mechanisms in different corporate systems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 17-34, January.
    6. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    7. Matthias Kiefer & Edward Jones & Andrew Adams, 2016. "Principals, Agents and Incomplete Contracts: Are Surrender of Control and Renegotiation the Solution?," CFI Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Finance and Investment, Heriot Watt University.
    8. Henrik Cronqvist & Fredrik Heyman & Mattias Nilsson & Helena Svaleryd & Jonas Vlachos, 2009. "Do Entrenched Managers Pay Their Workers More?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 309-339, February.
    9. Gerard J. van den Berg, 2003. "Multiple Equilibria and Minimum Wages in Labor Markets with Informational Frictions and Heterogeneous Production Technologies," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(4), pages 1337-1357, November.
    10. Braun, Christine & Engelhardt, Bryan & Griffy, Benjamin & Rupert, Peter, 2020. "Testing the independence of job arrival rates and wage offers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Giovanni Sulis, 2012. "Gender wage differentials in Italy: a structural estimation approach," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 53-87, January.
    12. Peter M Clarkson & Shams Pathan & Andrew Tellam, 2016. "Do private equity target firms exhibit less effectual governance structures?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 41(2), pages 244-270, May.
    13. van den Berg, Gerard J, 1999. "Empirical Inference with Equilibrium Search Models of the Labour Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(456), pages 283-306, June.
    14. Li, Xiaoyang, 2013. "Productivity, restructuring, and the gains from takeovers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 250-271.
    15. Hellwig, Martin, 1998. "On the economics and politics of corporate finance and corporate control," Papers 98-43, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    16. Tomi Kyyrä, 2007. "Estimating Equilibrium Search Models from Finnish Data," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 139-165, Autumn.
    17. Shaimaa Yassin, 2013. "Structural Labor Market Transitions and Wage Dispersion in Egypt and Jordan," Working Papers 753, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2013.
    18. Giovanni Sulis, 2008. "Wage Dispersion and Equilibrium Search Models: Some Evidence from Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(4), pages 593-627, December.
    19. Rudolf Kerschbamer, 1998. "Disciplinary Takeovers and Industry Effects," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 265-306, June.
    20. Wang, Kun Tracy & Shailer, Greg, 2022. "Multiple performance criteria for government-controlled firms," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 75-96.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

    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:ier:iecrev:v:43:y:2002:i:4:p:1309-1345. 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: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.