American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics
ISSN 1945-7707 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7715 (Online)
Job Polarization and Structural Change
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
vol. 10,
no. 1, January 2018
(pp. 57–89)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
We document that job polarization—contrary to the consensus—has started as early as the 1950s in the United States: middle-wage workers have been losing both in terms of employment and average wage growth compared to low- and high-wage workers. Given that polarization is a long-run phenomenon and closely linked to the shift from manufacturing to services, we propose a structural change driven explanation, where we explicitly model the sectoral choice of workers. Our simple model does remarkably well not only in matching the evolution of sectoral employment, but also of relative wages over the past 50 years.Citation
Bárány, Zsófia L., and Christian Siegel. 2018. "Job Polarization and Structural Change." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 10 (1): 57–89. DOI: 10.1257/mac.20150258Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- E24 Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
- J21 Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
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