Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill

In the U.S. the average black worker has a lower employment rate and earns a lower wage compared to his white counterpart. Lang and Lehmann (2012) argue that black-white wage and employment gaps are smaller for high-skill workers. We show that a model combining employer taste-based discrimination, s...

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Main Authors: Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel, Bradley, Jake, Tarasonis, Linas
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46993/
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author Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel
Bradley, Jake
Tarasonis, Linas
author_facet Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel
Bradley, Jake
Tarasonis, Linas
author_sort Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description In the U.S. the average black worker has a lower employment rate and earns a lower wage compared to his white counterpart. Lang and Lehmann (2012) argue that black-white wage and employment gaps are smaller for high-skill workers. We show that a model combining employer taste-based discrimination, search frictions and skill complementarities can replicate these regularities, and estimate it using data from the U.S. manufacturing sector. We find that discrimination is quantitatively important to understand differences in wages and job finding rates across workers with low education levels, whereas skill differences are the main driver of those differences among workers with high education levels.
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spelling nottingham-469932020-05-04T19:08:59Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46993/ Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel Bradley, Jake Tarasonis, Linas In the U.S. the average black worker has a lower employment rate and earns a lower wage compared to his white counterpart. Lang and Lehmann (2012) argue that black-white wage and employment gaps are smaller for high-skill workers. We show that a model combining employer taste-based discrimination, search frictions and skill complementarities can replicate these regularities, and estimate it using data from the U.S. manufacturing sector. We find that discrimination is quantitatively important to understand differences in wages and job finding rates across workers with low education levels, whereas skill differences are the main driver of those differences among workers with high education levels. Elsevier 2017-09-28 Article PeerReviewed Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel, Bradley, Jake and Tarasonis, Linas (2017) Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill. Labour Economics, 49 . pp. 106-127. ISSN 1879-1034 Employment and wage gaps; Discrimination; Job search; Sorting http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092753711730307X doi:10.1016/j.labeco.2017.09.007 doi:10.1016/j.labeco.2017.09.007
spellingShingle Employment and wage gaps; Discrimination; Job search; Sorting
Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel
Bradley, Jake
Tarasonis, Linas
Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill
title Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill
title_full Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill
title_fullStr Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill
title_full_unstemmed Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill
title_short Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill
title_sort racial discrimination in the u.s. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill
topic Employment and wage gaps; Discrimination; Job search; Sorting
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46993/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46993/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46993/