We use tax-based longitudinal microdata for 1982-99 to (i) examine how earnings distributions have shifted, (ii) identify changes in earnings mobility patterns, and (iii) replicate and update Beaudry and Green's cohort analysis of age-earnings profiles. We find: (i) increased polarization of...

This paper examines the variability of workers' earnings in Canada over the period 1982 1997. Using a large panel of tax file data, we decompose total variation in earnings across workers and time into a long-run inequality component between workers and an average earnings instability component...