Trends in the Transitory Variance of Male Earnings in the U.S., 1970-2004

Abstract

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Education and Lifetime Earnings in the United States

“…Additionally, the association between current and lifetime earnings may vary in labor markets with high intragenerational mobility (Björklund 1993; Moffitt and Gottschalk 2011; Riddell and Song 2011). Estimates based on synthetic cohort methods often omit earnings from the early 20s.…”

Has the Instability of Personal Incomes been Increasing?

“…From then until 2003 -the period for which there are BHPS estimates -the transitory variance fell slightly and then rose again at the end of the period: see for example Gottschalk and Moffitt (2009: Figure 1). Moffitt and Gottschalk (2008a) Variability is greater for household income among all individuals than for earnings among prime-age male employees according to both types of measure. In addition, there is no clear trend upwards or downwards over the period as a whole.…”

Robert Moffitt and Peter Gottschalk’s 1995 paper ‘Trends in the covariance structure of earnings in the US: 1969–1987’

“…Administrative data bring advantages-they are usually assumed to contain less measurement error than survey data and often provide very large sample sizes, though there are sometimes undesirable features too such as bottom-and topcoding. Peter and Robert have also used administrative record data: see Moffitt and Gottschalk [31]. A new strand of work has introduced greater heterogeneity across individuals in the processes governing earnings dynamics: see Browning et al [5].…”