Occupations, Human Capital and Skills.
Economists have long recognized that occupations can be used as proxies for skills in wage regressions. Yet the potential existence of non-market factors such as discrimination and occupational choice (sorting) on the basis of job attributes that are separate from, but potentially correlated with, w...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Labor Research Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 365 - 387 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Springer Science & Business Media B.V.
December 2010
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=510955771&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 510955771 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01953613 JLR jtl: Journal of Labor Research issn: 01953613 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: December 2010 vid: 31 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Science & Business Media B.V. artinfo: ui: 510955771 10.1007/s12122-010-9098-x ppf: 365 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.2MB tig: atl: Occupations, Human Capital and Skills. aug: au: Levenson, Alec Zoghi, Cindy su: Job classification Wage differentials Employment & education Skilled labor Human capital Mathematical models Wages United States sug: subj: United States Job classification Wage differentials Employment & education Skilled labor Human capital Mathematical models Wages ab: Economists have long recognized that occupations can be used as proxies for skills in wage regressions. Yet the potential existence of non-market factors such as discrimination and occupational choice (sorting) on the basis of job attributes that are separate from, but potentially correlated with, wages makes occupations an imperfect control for skills. In this paper, we consider whether inter-occupational wage differentials that are unexplained by measured human capital are indeed due to differences in unmeasured skill. Using the National Compensation Survey, a large, nationally-representative dataset on jobs and ten different components of job requirements, we compare the effects on residual wage variation of including occupation indicators and these skill requirements measures. We find that although these skill requirements vary across 3-digit occupations, occupation indicators decrease wage residuals by far more than can be explained by skill alone. This indicates that “controlling for occupation” does not equate to controlling for only these skill measures, but also for other factors. Additionally, we find that there is considerable within-occupation variation in skill requirements, and that the amount of variation is not constant across skill levels. As a result, including occupation indicators in a wage model introduces heteroskedasticity that must be accounted for. We suggest that caution be applied when using and interpreting occupation indicators as controls in wage regressions. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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