The role of low earnings in differing trends in male earnings volatility

Michael D. Carr and Emily E. Wiemers

Economics Letters, 2021, vol. 199, issue C

Abstract: Trends in male earnings volatility vary across studies. Volatility is flat or increasing in most studies using survey data but falling in recent studies using administrative data. This paper uses Survey of Income and Program Participation data linked to administrative earnings histories from the Detailed Earnings Records to investigate the effect of the treatment of low earnings on earnings volatility. We show that volatility trends are sensitive to the treatment of low earnings: when low earnings are treated as is typically done with survey data, volatility is flat or increasing slightly, but when low earnings are treated as in recent studies using administrative earnings data, volatility declines.

Keywords: Volatility; Administrative data; SIPP GSF (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176520304626
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:199:y:2021:i:c:s0165176520304626

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109702

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().