WAGE RISK, EMPLOYMENT RISK, AND THE RISE IN WAGE INEQUALITY

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mecikovsky, Ariel; Wellschmied, Felix
• 署名单位: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; IZA Institute Labor Economics
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.12735
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 567-594
• 关键词: job mobility; rising inequality; population ratio; earnings; consumption; insurance; disability; workers

摘要

U.S. male residual wage inequality rose, and the employment rate fell between 1983 and 2013. Using a structural labor market model, we show that rising idiosyncratic wage risk and lower taxes at the bottom of the earnings distribution are the main forces behind rising wage inequality. The former contributes to the falling employment rate. Falling real wages and rising disability risk further depressed employment of workers without a college degree and rising exogenous job destruction depressed employment of workers with a college degree. Higher idiosyncratic risk entails large welfare losses with the largest losses among workers without a college degree.