Structure of Earnings and the Measurement of Income Inequality in the U.S. (eBook)

Front Cover 1
The Structure of Earnings and the Measurement of Income Inequality in the U.S. 4
Copyright Page 5
Table of Contents 12
Dedication 8
Preface 10
Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 14
Chapter 2. TRENDS IN THE LABOR MARKET 18
Chapter 3. ON THE GENERATION, MEASUREMENT AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME 68
3.1 Hypotheses on How Observed Distributions are Generated 69
3.2 Measuring Inequality 71
3.3 Axiom-Based Inequality Measurement and Theil's Entropy Measures 76
3.4 Approximating the Observed Income Distribution: Parametric Forms 79
3.5 The Lorenz Curve: A Nonparamteric Description of the Observed Distribution 84
Chapter 4. IDENTIFYING DISTRIBUTIONAL FORMS UTILIZING THE k - CRITERION 90
4.1 Introduction 90
4.2 The Test 91
Chapter 5. APPROXIMATING INCOME DISTRIBUTIONS: THE BETA DISTRIBUTION OF THE SECOND KIND 100
5.1 Introduction 100
5.2 The Model 101
5.3 The Beta Distribution of the Second Kind and Income Inequality Across States for Various Population Subgroups 104
5.4 Empirical Results 108
5.5 Policy Implications 110
5.6 Another Example: The Size Distribution of Labor and Nonlabor Income 111
5.7 Summary and Conclusions 115
Chapter 6. INEQUALITY ACROSS DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS 135
6.1 Measuring Income Inequality 138
6.2 Empirical Resultsfor Various Demographic Groups 140
Chapter 7. THE DISTRIBUTION OF EARNINGS ACROSS OCCUPATIONS 184
7.1 Introduction 184
7.2 A Description of the Data 185
7.3 The Empirical Results 186
Chapter 8. SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 199
8.1 A Review and Summary of our Findings 199
8.2 Future Research Applications 201
Appendix 204
References 205
Indixes 217
Author Index 217
Vocabulary Index 218