The Effects of Technological Change on Earnings and Income Inequality inthe United States / McKinley L. Blackburn, David E. Bloom.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blackburn, McKinley L.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Bloom, David E.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w2337.

NBER working paper series no. w2337

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1987.

Summary:

This paper explores the relationship between technological change and inequality in the U.S. since the late 1960's. The analysis focuses primarily on studying patterns and trends in the dispersion of various distributions of earnings and income during this recent period of rapid technological progress. We review relevant literature and perform several empirical analyses using microdata from the March Current Population Surveys from 1968 to 1986. Our main findings are that there is little empirical evidence that earnings inequality, measured across individual workers, has increased since the late 1960's, and even less evidence to support the hypothesis that any changes that have occurred have resulted from the effect of technological change on the demand for labor. However, we do find evidence of an increase since the late 1960's in the inequality of total family income, measured across families. Moreover, much of the increase appears to be due to changes in family composition and labor supply behavior, suggesting that the main effects of recent technological change on inequality have been supply-side in nature.

Notes:

Print version record

August 1987.