Reconciling the Divergence in Aggregate U.S. Wage Series

Julien Champagne, André Kurmann and Jay Stewart

No 9754, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: According to data from the Labor Productivity and Costs (LPC) program, average hourly real compensation in the United States has grown consistently over time and become markedly more volatile since the mid-1980s. By contrast, data from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) imply that average hourly real earnings has mostly stagnated and become substantially less volatile. We show that differences in earnings concept and differences in worker coverage account for the majority of this divergence in growth and volatility. The results have important implications for the appropriate choice of aggregate wage series for macroeconomic analysis.

Keywords: earnings trends; comparison of hourly earnings data; earnings volatility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E01 E24 E30 J30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2016-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Labour Economics, 2017, 49, 27-41

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Related works:
Journal Article: Reconciling the divergence in aggregate U.S. wage series (2017)
Working Paper: Reconciling the divergence in aggregate U.S. wage series (2016)
Working Paper: Reconciling the divergence in aggregate U.S. wage series (2015)
Working Paper: Reconciling the divergence in aggregate U.S. wage series (2014)
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