American Economic Review Vol. 114 No. 10 2024

Rising Top, Falling Bottom: Industries and Rising Wage Inequality

John Haltiwanger¹; Henry R. Hyatt²; James R. Spletzer³

¹ University of Maryland (email: ) · ² Center for Economic Studies, US Census Bureau (email: ) · ³ Retired (email: )

Abstract

Most of the rise in overall earnings inequality from 1996 to 2018 is accounted for by rising between-industry dispersion. The contribution of industries is right-skewed with the top 10 percent of four-digit NAICS industries dominating. The top 10 percent are clustered in high-paying high-tech and low-paying retail sectors. In the top industries, high-wage workers are increasingly sorted to high-wage industries with rising industry premia. In the bottom industries, low-wage workers are increasingly sorted into lowwage industries, with rising employment and falling industry wage premia.

DOI

10.1257/aer.20221574

Volume

114

Issue

10

Pages

3250-3283

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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