Decomposing the Sources of Earnings Inequality: Assessing the Role of Reallocation

Fredrik Andersson, Elizabeth Davis, Matthew Freedman, Julia Lane, Brian McCall and L. Kristin Sandusky

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: This paper uses matched employer-employee data from the U.S. Census Bureau to investigate the contribution of worker and firm reallocation to changes in wage inequality within and across industries between 1992 and 2003. We find that the entry and exit of firms and the sorting of workers and firms based on underlying worker skills are important sources of changes in earnings distributions over time. Our results suggest that the underlying dynamics driving changes in earnings inequality are complex and are due to factors that cannot be measured in standard cross-sectional data.

Keywords: Inequality; Decomposition; Human Capital; Reallocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 J24 J31 J48 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2010/CES-WP-10-32.pdf First version, 2010 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Decomposing the Sources of Earnings Inequality: Assessing the Role of Reallocation (2012)
Working Paper: Decomposing the Sources of Earnings Inequality: Assessing the Role of Reallocation (2011)
Working Paper: Decomposing the Sources of Earnings Inequality Assessing the Role of Reallocation
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:10-32

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