polarization

Relative Distribution Methods

We present an outline of relative distribution methods, with an application to recent changes in the U.S. wage distribution. Relative distribution methods are a nonparametric statistical framework for analyzing data in a fully distributional …

Women’s Gains or Men’s Losses? A closer look at the Shrinking Gender Gap in Earnings

The recent closing of the gender wage gap is often attributed to increases in women's human capital. This explanation neglects the effect of growing inequality in men's earnings. The authors develop a decomposition that allows them to test how …

Economic Inequality: New Methods for New Trends

Two positions dominate the debate over the recent increases in economic inequality in the United States. The 'job-skill mismatch' thesis attributes rising inequality to growth in the number of high-skill, high-wage jobs that leaves less-skilled …