[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-301535-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-1-en-105":80,"doc-detail-301535-en":126},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":73,"head_meta":75,"extra_data":77,"updated_unix":79},105,"en","firming-up-inequality-nber-working-paper-21199-may-2015-revised-june-2015","Firming Up Inequality - NBER Working Paper 21199 - May 2015 - Revised June 2015","","Earnings inequality in the United States increased rapidly over the last three decades, yet the role of firms in this trend remains insufficiently understood. The paper quantifies how much of the rise comes from dispersion in average wages paid by employers versus wage dispersion within firms, using matched employer-employee data for all U.S. firms from 1978 to 2012. Results show nearly all earnings dispersion growth comes from between-firm differences, while within-employer pay gaps stay nearly unchanged across industries, regions, and firm sizes. The CEO-to-average-employee wage gap rises only modestly, limiting claims that widening top pay explains most inequality.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/","Template",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/presentations/","Presentations",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/firming-up-inequality-nber-working-paper-21199-may-2015-revised-june-2015/301535/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/firming-up-inequality-nber-working-paper-21199-may-2015-revised-june-2015/301535.png","ImageObject",442,249,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Ethan Miller","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-23","2026-09-19",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":22},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",{"@type":56,"mainEntity":57},"FAQPage",[58,64,68],{"name":59,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":61},"What is the central question of the working paper?","Question",{"text":62,"@type":63},"How much of the increase in U.S. earnings inequality is explained by differences between firms in average wages versus differences within firms among workers.","Answer",{"name":65,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":66},"What data approach does the paper use?",{"text":67,"@type":63},"It constructs a matched employer-employee dataset for the United States using administrative records, covering all U.S. firms from 1978 to 2012.",{"name":69,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":70},"What do the results show about wage dispersion between and within firms?",{"text":71,"@type":63},"Virtually all of the rise in earnings dispersion is attributed to increasing dispersion in average wages paid by employers, while pay differences within employers remain virtually unchanged.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":74,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":76,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":78,"site_id":7},301535,1790141909,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":82},"success",[83,87,92,97,102,107,112,117,122],{"id":84,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":85,"slug":86},11,90,"presentations",{"id":88,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},12,"Resumes",80,"resumes",{"id":93,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},14,"Invoices",70,"invoices",{"id":98,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":99,"show_sort_weight":100,"slug":101},15,"Posters",60,"posters",{"id":103,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":104,"show_sort_weight":105,"slug":106},16,"Social Media",50,"social-media",{"id":108,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":109,"show_sort_weight":110,"slug":111},17,"Forms",40,"forms",{"id":113,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":114,"show_sort_weight":115,"slug":116},18,"Letters",30,"letters",{"id":118,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":119,"show_sort_weight":120,"slug":121},21,"Paper Templates",5,"papers-templates",{"id":123,"doc_module":22,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":4,"slug":125},158,"General","general-158",{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":127},{"doc_id":78,"user_id":128,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":22,"category_id":84,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":30,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":135,"language":136,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":137,"faqs":138,"seo_title":139,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":140,"read_time":141},687207017582,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES  \nFIRMING UP INEQUALITY  \nJae Song  \nDavid J. Price  \nFatih Guvenen  \nNicholas Bloom  \nTill von Wachter  \nWorking Paper 21199  \n[http://www.nber.org/papers/w21199](http://www.nber.org/papers/w21199)  \nNATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH  \n1050 Massachusetts Avenue  \nCambridge, MA 02138  \nMay 2015  \nFor comments, we thank conference participants at the 2014 Winter Meeting of the American Economic Association, the 2014 Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society and the 2014 meeting of the Society for Economic Dynamics. We thank the National Science Foundation for financial support. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Social Security Administration or the National Bureau of Economic Research.  \nNBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.  \n© 2015 by Jae Song, David J. Price, Fatih Guvenen, Nicholas Bloom, and Till von Wachter. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source.  \nFirming Up Inequality  \nJae Song, David J. Price, Fatih Guvenen, Nicholas Bloom, and Till von Wachter NBER Working Paper No. 21199  \nMay 2015, Revised June 2015  \nJEL No. E24,E25,J31,L23  \nABSTRACT  \nEarnings inequality in the United States has increased rapidly over the last three decades, but little is known about the role of firms in this trend. For example, how much of the rise in earnings inequality can be attributed to rising dispersion between firms in the average wages they pay, and how much is due to rising wage dispersion among workers within firms? Similarly, how did rising inequality affect the wage earnings of different types of workers working for the same employer—men vs. women, young vs. old, new hires vs. senior employees, and so on? To address questions like these, we begin by constructing a matched employer-employee data set for the United States using administrative records. Covering all U.S. firms between 1978 to 2012, we show that virtually all of the rise in earnings dispersion between workers is accounted for by increasing dispersion in average wages paid by the employers of these individuals. In contrast, pay differences within employers have remained virtually unchanged, a finding that is robust across industries, geographical regions, and firm size groups. Furthermore, the wage gap between the most highly paid employees within these firms (CEOs and high level executives) and the average employee has increased only by a small amount, refuting oft-made claims that such widening gaps account for a large fraction of rising inequality in the population.  \nJae Song  \nSocial Security Administration Office of Disability Adjudication and Review  \n5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 1400 Falls Church, VA 22041 [jae.song@ssa.gov](jae.song@ssa.gov)  \nDavid J. Price  \nStanford University Department of Economics  \n579 Serra Mall Stanford, CA 94305 [djprice@stanford.edu](djprice@stanford.edu)  \nFatih Guvenen Department of Economics University of Minnesota 4-101 Hanson Hall 1925 Fourth Street South Minneapolis, MN, 55455 and NBER[guvenen@umn.edu](guvenen@umn.edu)  \nNicholas Bloom Stanford University Department of Economics  \n579 Serra Mall  \nStanford, CA 94305-6072  \nand NBER  \n[nbloom@stanford.edu](nbloom@stanford.edu)  \nTill von Wachter  \nDepartment of Economics University of California, Los Angeles 8283 Bunche Hall  \nMC 147703 Los Angeles, CA 90095 and NBER[tvwachter@econ.ucla.edu](tvwachter@econ.ucla.edu)  \n1 Introduction  \nThe dramatic rise in U.S. wage inequality since the 1970s has been well documented. An enormous body of theoretical and empirical research has been conducted over the past two decades in an attempt to understand the causes of this trend.1 While ","cbCaiduahhsyYpSl","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiduahhsyYpSl","pdf",1121408,37,"English","# Introduction\n## Wage inequality trends since the 1970s\n## Firm-side explanations and open questions\n## Data and measurement approach","[{\"question\":\"What is the central question of the working paper?\",\"answer\":\"How much of the increase in U.S. earnings inequality is explained by differences between firms in average wages versus differences within firms among workers.\"},{\"question\":\"What data approach does the paper use?\",\"answer\":\"It constructs a matched employer-employee dataset for the United States using administrative records, covering all U.S. firms from 1978 to 2012.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the results show about wage dispersion between and within firms?\",\"answer\":\"Virtually all of the rise in earnings dispersion is attributed to increasing dispersion in average wages paid by employers, while pay differences within employers remain virtually unchanged.\"}]","Firming Up Inequality - NBER Working Paper 21199 - May 2015 - Revised June 2015 | PDF",1789783373,13]