Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2001
Abstract
In his seminal contribution, Gary Becker (1957) suggests that rents in noncompetitive industries provide employers with the latitude to engage in earnings discrimination. Implicit in this theory, is that white workers in noncompetitive industries would capture a disproportion ate share of monopoly rents (excessive wages) relative to their minority counterparts. We utilize wage-change equations to examine earnings shifts for whites and minorities stemming from a job switch to a different market structure. Additionally for each racial group, wage equations of workers before and after the job change are used to calculate difference in-differences estimates of wage change as a result of the job switch. The findings contradict the stated hypothesis: gains in minority wages from joining noncompetitive industries and losses in wages from leaving are larger, suggesting that (for minorities) the higher, less discriminatory wages of union employment in noncompetitive industries outweigh employer discrimination in non-union, noncompetitive industries.
Recommended Citation
Agesa, J., Agesa, R. U., & Hoover, G. A. (2001). Market structure and racial earnings: Evidence from job-changers. The American Economic Review, 91(2), 169-173.
Comments
Copyright © 2001 American Economic Association. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.