IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1314.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Test of Dual Labor Market Theory

Author

Listed:
  • William T. Dickens
  • Kevin Lang

Abstract

Despite substantial differences in their views of the appropriate policy response to the existence of poverty, neither the proponents of dual market theory nor its critics have proposed potentially conclusive tests of the dual market hypothesis.This paper presents a test of the two central propositions of dual market theory -- 1) the existence of two distinct labor markets with different wage setting mechanisms and 2) the existence of barriers to mobility between the labor markets. We find considerable support for both hypothesis. Estimation of a switching model of wage determination with unknown regimes yields two distinct wage equations. The one which most workers are associated with closely resembles the standard human capital regression with significant returns to education and experience. The other equation is flat with no returns to human capital. These two equations resemble the predictions of dual market theory for the "primary" and "secondary" markets respectively. Further, we present evidence that(at least) some non-white workers are involuntarily confined to the secondary market. This crowding of minority workers into the low wage labor market accounts for a substantial portion of white/non-white wage differences. We interpret these results as providing empirical support for the dual market hypothesis and for recent theoretical work on efficiency wagemodels. In addition, combining the efficiency wage argument with the observation that much of the white/non-white wage difference is explained by the exclusion of non-whites from the primary sector suggests an explanation for the persistance of wage differences.

Suggested Citation

  • William T. Dickens & Kevin Lang, 1984. "A Test of Dual Labor Market Theory," NBER Working Papers 1314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1314
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1314.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William T. Dickens, 1983. "The Effect of Company Campaigns on Certification Elections: Law and Reality Once Again," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 36(4), pages 560-575, July.
    2. Duane E. Leigh, 1976. "Occupational Advancement in the Late 1960s: An Indirect Test of the Dual Labor Market Hypothesis," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 11(2), pages 155-171.
    3. Ernst R. Berndt & Bronwyn H. Hall & Robert E. Hall & Jerry A. Hausman, 1974. "Estimation and Inference in Nonlinear Structural Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 4, pages 653-665, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Paul Osterman, 1975. "An Empirical Study of Labor Market Segmentation," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 28(4), pages 508-523, July.
    5. Oster, Gerry, 1979. "A Factor Analytic Test of the Theory of the Dual Economy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(1), pages 33-39, February.
    6. Weiss, Andrew W, 1980. "Job Queues and Layoffs in Labor Markets with Flexible Wages," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 526-538, June.
    7. Elie Appelbaum & Chin Lim, 1981. "Ex Ante and Ex Post Firms and Equilibrium Price Fluctuations," UWO Department of Economics Working Papers 8109, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    8. Kahn, Shulamit, 1987. "Occupational Safety and Workers Preferences: Is There a Marginal Worker?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(2), pages 262-268, May.
    9. Piore, Michael J, 1983. "Labor Market Segmentation: To What Paradigm Does It Belong?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(2), pages 249-253, May.
    10. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:1314. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.