This paper shows how difficult it is to study the roles of discrimination and unobserved skills when studying changes in racial and gender wage gaps over time by examining merits and shortcomings of a popular decomposition method by Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1991). The JMP method shows that wage...

We propose a measure of the industrial gender wage gap which is free from an identification problem by using inter-industry wage differentials, or industrial wage premia. We draw on a recent literature showing that a normalized regression equation can be used to resolve the identification...

We propose a simple methodology for decomposing differences in the first moment into characteristics and coefficients effects. This methodology provides a way to apply the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to a non-linear function for both aggregate and detailed decompositions

Oaxaca and Ransom (1999) show that a detailed decomposition of the coefficients effect is destined to suffer from an identification problem since the detailed coefficients effect attributed to a dummy variable is not invariant to the choice of reference groups. It turns out that the...

Oaxaca and Ransom (1999) show that a detailed decomposition of the coefficients effect is destined to suffer from an identification problem since the detailed coefficients effect attributed to dummy variables is not invariant to the choice of reference groups. It turns out that the...

The major contribution of this paper is ending a new and flexible way to measure the effects of selection on log-wages. In this context, we offer a general approach to performing decomposition analysis when selection effects are present. We call the difference between unconditional and...

The minimum wage has been regarded as an important element of public policy for reducing poverty and inequality. Increasing the minimum wage is supposed to raise earnings for millions of low-wage workers and therefore lower earnings inequality. However, there is no consensus in the existing...

The major contribution of this paper is ending a new and flexible way to measure the effects of selection on log-wages. In this context, we offer a general approach to performing decomposition analysis when selection effects are present. We call the difference between unconditional and...