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Journal Article•DOI•

The Role of Premarket Factors in Black-White Wage Differences

Derek Neal, William R. Johnson
01 Oct 1996-Journal of Political Economy (The University of Chicago Press)-Vol. 104, Iss: 5, pp 869-895
TL;DR: In this paper, a parsimoniously specified wage equation that controls for skill with the score of a test administered as teenagers prepared to leave high school and embark on work careers or postsecondary education was used to measure the wage effects of current labor market discrimination against minorities.
Abstract: Many attempts to measure the wage effects of current labor market discrimination against minorities include controls for worker productivity that (1) could themselves be affected by market discrimination and (2) are very imprecise measures of worker skill. The resulting estimates of residual wage gaps may be biased. Our approach is a parsimoniously specified wage equation that controls for skill with the score of a test administered as teenagers prepared to leave high school and embark on work careers or postsecondary education. Independent evidence shows that this test score is a racially unbiased measure of the skills and abilities these teenagers were about to bring to the labor market. We find that this one test score explains all of the black-white wage gap for young women and much of the gap for young men. For today's young adults, the black-white wage gap primarily reflects a skill gap, which in turn we can trace, at least in part, to observable differences in the family backgrounds.

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Citations
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Journal Article•DOI•
The Mark of a Criminal Record

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Devah Pager1•
Northwestern University1
01 Mar 2003-American Journal of Sociology
TL;DR: The findings of this study reveal an important, and much underrecognized, mechanism of stratification in the criminal justice system, which presents a major barrier to employment, with important implications for racial disparities.
Abstract: With over 2 million individuals currently incarcerated, and over half a million prisoners released each year, the large and growing number of men being processed through the criminal justice system raises important questions about the consequences of this massive institutional intervention. This article focuses on the consequences of incarceration for the employment outcomes of black and white job seekers. The present study adopts an experimental audit approach—in which matched pairs of individuals applied for real entry‐level jobs—to formally test the degree to which a criminal record affects subsequent employment opportunities. The findings of this study reveal an important, and much underrecognized, mechanism of stratification. A criminal record presents a major barrier to employment, with important implications for racial disparities.

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Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States*

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Raj Chetty1, Nathaniel Hendren1, Patrick Kline2, Emmanuel Saez2•
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14 Sep 2014-Quarterly Journal of Economics
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use administrative records on the incomes of more than 40 million children and their parents to describe three features of intergenerational mobility in the United States: the joint distribution of parent and child income at the national level, the conditional expectation of child income given parent income, and the factors correlated with upward mobility.
Abstract: We use administrative records on the incomes of more than 40 million children and their parents to describe three features of intergenerational mobility in the United States. First, we characterize the joint distribution of parent and child income at the national level. The conditional expectation of child income given parent income is linear in percentile ranks. On average, a 10 percentile increase in parent income is associated with a 3.4 percentile increase in a child’s income. Second, intergenerational mobility varies substantially across areas within the U.S. For example, the probability that a child reaches the top quintile of the national income distribution starting from a family in the bottom quintile is 4.4% in Charlotte but 12.9% in San Jose. Third, we explore the factors correlated with upward mobility. High mobility areas have (1) less residential segregation, (2) less income inequality, (3) better primary schools, (4) greater social capital, and (5) greater family stability. While our descriptive analysis does not identify the causal mechanisms that determine upward mobility, the publicly available statistics on intergenerational mobility developed here can facilitate research on such mechanisms. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reect

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Abstract: The relationship between school resources and student achievement has been controversial, in large part because it calls into question a variety of traditional policy approaches. This article reviews the available educational production literature, updating previous summaries. The close to 400 studies of student achievement demonstrate that there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources, at least after variations in family inputs are taken into account. These results are also reconciled with meta-analytic approaches and with other investigations on how school resources affect labor market outcomes. Simple resource policies hold little hope for improving student outcomes.

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Book•
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Understanding Differences in Health Behaviors by Education

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References
More filters
Journal Article•DOI•
Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates

[...]

Alan S. Blinder
01 Jan 1973-Journal of Human Resources
TL;DR: In this paper, a distinction is drawn between reduced form and structural wage equations, and both are estimated They are shown to have very different implications for analyzing the white-black and male-female wage differentials.
Abstract: Regressions explaining the wage rates of white males, black males, and white females are used to analyze the white-black wage differential among men and the male-female wage differential among whites A distinction is drawn between reduced form and structural wage equations, and both are estimated They are shown to have very different implications for analyzing the white-black and male-female wage differentials When the two sets of estimates are synthesized, they jointly imply that 70 percent of the overall race differential and 100 percent of the overall sex differential are ultimately attributable to discrimination of various sorts

6,175 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Problems with Instrumental Variables Estimation when the Correlation between the Instruments and the Endogenous Explanatory Variable is Weak

[...]

John Bound1, David A. Jaeger2, Regina Baker2•
National Bureau of Economic Research1, University of Michigan2
01 Jan 1995-Journal of the American Statistical Association
TL;DR: In this article, the use of instruments that explain little of the variation in the endogenous explanatory variables can lead to large inconsistencies in the IV estimates even if only a weak relationship exists between the instruments and the error in the structural equation.
Abstract: We draw attention to two problems associated with the use of instrumental variables (IV), the importance of which for empirical work has not been fully appreciated. First, the use of instruments that explain little of the variation in the endogenous explanatory variables can lead to large inconsistencies in the IV estimates even if only a weak relationship exists between the instruments and the error in the structural equation. Second, in finite samples, IV estimates are biased in the same direction as ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates. The magnitude of the bias of IV estimates approaches that of OLS estimates as the R 2 between the instruments and the endogenous explanatory variable approaches 0. To illustrate these problems, we reexamine the results of a recent paper by Angrist and Krueger, who used large samples from the U.S. Census to estimate wage equations in which quarter of birth is used as an instrument for educational attainment. We find evidence that, despite huge sample sizes, th...

4,219 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
The bell curve : intelligence and class structure in American life

[...]

Richard J. Herrnstein1, Charles Murray•
Harvard University1
01 Sep 1995-Population and Development Review
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the evolution of cognitive class and education in the United States and the role of race and ethnicity in cognitive ability in the development of cognitive ability and the level of American education.
Abstract: Contents List of Illustrations List of Tables A Note to the Reader Preface Acknowledgments Introduction PART I. THE EMERGENCE OF A COGNITIVE ELITE 1 Cognitive Class and Education, 1900-1990 2 Cognitive Partitioning by Occupation 3 The Economic Pressure to Partition 4 Steeper Ladders, Narrower Gates PART II. COGNITIVE CLASSES AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 5 Poverty 6 Schooling 7 Unemployment, Idleness, and Injury 8 Family Matters 9 Welfare Dependency 10 Parenting 11 Crime 12 Civility and Citizenship PART III. THE NATIONAL CONTEXT 13 Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Ability 14 Ethnic Inequalities in Relation to IQ 15 The Demography of Intelligence 16 Social Behavior and the Prevalence of Low Cognitive Ability PART IV. LIVING TOGETHER 17 Raising Cognitive Ability 18 The Leveling of American Education 19 Affirmative Action in Higher Education 20 Affirmative Action in the Workplace 21 The Way We Are Headed 22 A Place for Everyone Afterworld APPENDIXES 1 Statistics for People Who Are Sure They Can't Learn Statistics 2 Technical Issues Regarding the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 3 Technical Issues Regarding the Armed Forces Qualification Test as a Measure of IQ 4 Regression Analyses (rom Part II 5 Supplemental Material for Chapter 13 6 Regression Analyses from Chapter 14 7 The Evolution of Affirmative Action in the Workplace Notes Bibliography Index

3,790 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings

[...]

Joshua D. Angrist1, Alan B. Krueger2•
Harvard University1, Princeton University2
01 Nov 1991-Quarterly Journal of Economics
TL;DR: This paper found that the season of birth is related to educational attainment and earnings, and that roughly 25 percent of potential dropouts remain in school because of compulsory schooling laws. But, they did not study the effect of compulsory attendance laws on educational attainment.
Abstract: We establish that season of birth is related to educational attainment because of school start age policy and compulsory school attendance laws. Individuals born in the beginning of the year start school at an older age, and can therefore drop out after completing less schooling than individuals born near the end of the year. Roughly 25 percent of potential dropouts remain in school because of compulsory schooling laws. We estimate the impact of compulsory schooling on earnings by using quarter of birth as an instrument for education. The instrumental variables estimate of the return to education is close to the ordinary least squares estimate, suggesting that there is little bias in conventional estimates. Every developed country in the world has a compulsory schooling requirement, yet little is known about the effect these laws have on educational attainment and earnings.1 This paper exploits an unusual natural experiment to estimate the impact of compulsory schooling laws in the United States. The experiment stems from the fact that children born in different months of the year start school at different ages, while compulsory schooling laws generally require students to remain in school until their sixteenth or seventeenth birthday. In effect, the interaction of school-entry requirements and compulsory schooling laws compel students born

2,475 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials

[...]

Ronald L. Oaxaca1, Michael R. Ransom2•
University of Arizona1, Brigham Young University2
01 Mar 1994-Journal of Econometrics
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined four alternative methods for estimating the extent of labor market discrimination. All of the methods involve the decomposition of gross (unadjusted) wage differentials into discrimination and productivity components.

1,640 citations

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Q1. What are the contributions in this paper?

In this paper, the authors presented a method to find the best ratio of the ratio of a 2.1 to a 3.5-approximation.