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Title: Superstardom and technological turbulence: job-linked sources of earnings inequality
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2008
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Abstract: The paper analyzes trends in the dispersion of earnings within occupations in the Current Population Survey since 1968 and the decennial U.S. Census since 1960. New media technologies make it easier to transmit certain kinds of work, such as athletic performances, to wider audiences around the world, enhancing the relative payoffs to the most-favored performers. Earnings inequality rose within these occupations, consistent with the superstars effect described by Rosen (1981). Earnings inequality rose within occupations which call for working closely with new semiconductor and information technologies, such as electrical engineers and computer programmers. It is argued that these occupations experienced technological uncertainty, which leads to extraordinary opportunities, obsolescence, and therefore turbulence. The uncertainty and superstars effects would naturally occur to some extent in many occupations. Therefore we examine also occupations in which these effects are likely to be the weakest those that call for personal interaction with other individuals. On average inequality within occupations at this other extreme has not risen.
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Authors: Meyer, Peter B.
Publisher: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other
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