Volume 22, Number 1 (Winter) 1987
Shackett, Joyce R. and D. J. Slottje. 1987. "Labor Supply Decisions, Human Capital Attributes, and Inequality in the Size Distribution of Earnings in the U.S., 1952-81." Journal of Human Resources 22(1):82-100.
This paper analyzes the impact of human capital and labor force variables and macroeconomic growth measures on inequality in the size distribution of earnings for the United States. Our technique utilizes a beta distribution of the second kind to approximate the distribution of earnings. We derive a measure of inequality that depends solely on the parameters of the beta distribution and that links human capital, labor force, and macroeconomic variables to changes in the parameters of the beta distribution. We then relate the changing parameters of the beta distribution to changes in the degree of inequality in the marginal distribution of earnings.
Shackett is a professor of economics at the University of Texas at Arlington and Slottje is a professor of economics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. This paper was presented at the Southern Economics Association meetings in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 1984. The authors thank R. L. Basmann, Zvi Griliches, J. Scully, Norman Waits of the IRS, and two unknown referees for helpful comments. The usual caveat applies.
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