Firm heterogeneity in capital-labour ratios and wage inequality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Leonardi, Marco
• 署名单位: University of Milan
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02022.x
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 375-398
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; technological-change; rise

摘要

This article documents the increasing dispersion of capital-labour ratios across firms in the US and provides some empirical evidence of a positive correlation at the two-digit industry level between the dispersion of capital-labour ratios across firms and residual wage inequality. To explain this empirical fact, the article adopts a search model where the exogenous decline in the relative price of equipment capital makes the distribution of capital-labour ratios more dispersed and increases wage dispersion among identical workers. OLS estimates of the relationship between capital dispersion and the relative price of equipment capital support the main hypothesis of the model.