Labor Market Segmentation, Wage Dispersion and Unemployment / Kevin Lang, William T. Dickens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lang, Kevin.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Dickens, William T.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w4073.

NBER working paper series no. w4073

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1992.

Summary:

This paper briefly reviews the empirical evidence on labor market segmentation and presents some new results on the similarity of the pattern of segmentation across 66 different countries. The paper goes on to consider how unemployment might be understood in a labor market segmentation framework. Existing models of unemployment in a dual labor market suggest that unemployment should be concentrated among those who are ultimately employed in high wage jobs. In fact, unemployment seems to be concentrated among workers who are more likely to be found in low wage jobs. This happens even though at least some workers find low wage jobs easy to obtain, We develop a segmented labor market model capable of explaining these facts and then explore its implications for the aggregate unemployment rate. We find that it fits well with the facts.

Notes:

Print version record

May 1992.