Production Function and Wage Equation Estimation with Heterogeneous Labor: Evidence from a New Matched Employer-Employee Data Set

In this paper, we first describe the 1990 DEED, the most recently constructed matched employer-employee data set for the United States that contains detailed demographic information on workers (most notably, information on education). We then use the data from manufacturing establishments in the 1990 DEED to update and expand on previous findings, using a more limited data set, regarding the measurement of the labor input and theories of wage determination. We find that the productivity of women is less than that of men, but not by enough to fully explain the gap in wages, a result that is consistent with wage discrimination against women. In contrast, we find no evidence of wage discrimination against blacks. We estimate that both the wage and productivity profiles are rising but concave to the origin (consistent with profiles quadratic in age), but the estimated relative wage profile is steeper than the relative productivity profile, consistent with models of deferred wages. We find a productivity premium for marriage equal to that of the wage premium, and a productivity premium for education that somewhat exceeds the wage premium. Exploring the sensitivity of these results, we also find that different specifications of production functions do not have any qualitative effects on the these results. Finally, the results indicate that the returns to productive inputs (capital, materials, labor quality) as well as the residual variance are virtually unaffected by the choice of the construction of the labor quality input.

Ethnicity, Language, and Workplace Segregation: Evidence from a New Matched Employer-Employee Data Set

We describe the construction and assessment of a new matched employer-employee data set (the Decennial Employer-Employee Dataset, or DEED) that we have undertaken as a part of a broad research agenda to study segregation in the U.S. labor market. In this paper we examine the role of segregation by Hispanic ethnicity and language proficiency, contributing new, previously unavailable descriptive information on segregation along these lines, and evidence on the wage premia or penalties associated with this segregation. The DEED is much larger and more representative across regional and industry dimensions than previous matched data sets for the United States, and improvements along both of these dimensions are essential to isolating the importance of segregation by language and ethnicity in the workplace. Our empirical results reveal considerable segregation by Hispanic ethnicity and by English language proficiency. We find that Hispanic workers, but not white workers, suffer wage penalties from employment in a workplace with a large share of Hispanic workers, and even more so a large share of Hispanic workers with poor English language proficiency. In addition, we find that segregation of Hispanic workers among other Hispanics with similar English language proficiency does not reduce the penalties associated with poor own language skills.

Spatial Mismatch or Racial Mismatch?

We contrast the spatial mismatch hypothesis with what we term the racial mismatch hypothesis – that the problem is not a lack of jobs, per se, where blacks live, but a lack of jobs where blacks live into which blacks are hired. We first report new evidence on the spatial mismatch hypothesis, using data from Census Long-Form respondents. We construct direct measures of the presence of jobs in detailed geographic areas, and find that these job density measures are related to employment of black male residents in ways that would be predicted by the spatial mismatch hypothesis – in particular that spatial mismatch is primarily an issue for low-skilled black male workers. We then look at mismatch along not only spatial lines but racial lines as well, by estimating the effects of job density measures that are disaggregated by race. We find that it is primarily black job density that influences black male employment, whereas white job density has little if any influence on their employment. The evidence implies that space alone plays a relatively minor role in low black male employment rates.

Measuring the Importance of Labor Market Networks

We specify and implement a test for the importance of network effects in determining the establishments at which people work, using recently-constructed matched employer-employee data at the establishment level. We explicitly measure the importance of network effects for groups broken out by race, ethnicity, and various measures of skill, for networks generated by residential proximity. The evidence indicates that labor market networks play an important role in hiring, more so for minorities and the less-skilled, especially among Hispanics, and that labor market networks appear to be race-based.networks, race, ethnicity, immigrants

Wages, Productivity, and Worker Characteristics: Evidence from Plant-Level Production Functions and Wage Equations

We use a unique new data set that combines individual worker data with data on workers' employers to estimate plant-level production functions and wage equations, and thus to compare relative marginal products and relative wages for various groups of workers. The data and empirical framework lead to new evidence on numerous questions regarding the determination of wages, questions that hinge on the relationship between wages and marginal products of workers in different demographic groups. These include race and sex discrimination in wages, the causes of rising wages over the life cycle, and the returns to marriage. First, workers who have ever been married are more productive than never-married workers and are paid accordingly. Second, prime-aged workers (aged 35-54) are equally as productive as younger workers, and in some specifications are estimated to receive higher wages. However, older workers (aged 55+) are less productive than younger workers but are paid more. Third, the data indicate no difference between the relative wage and relative productivity of black workers. Finally, with the exception of managerial and professional occupations, women are paid about 25-35% less than men, but estimated productivity differentials for women are generally no larger than 15%, and significantly smaller than the pay differential.

Employment in Black Urban Labor Markets: Problems and Solutions

Blacks in the United States are poorer than whites and have much lower employment rates. “Place-based” policies seek to improve the labor markets in which blacks – especially low-income urban blacks – tend to reside. We first review the literature on spatial mismatch, which provides much of the basis for place-based policies. New evidence demonstrates an important racial dimension to spatial mismatch, and this “racial mismatch” suggests that simply creating more jobs where blacks live, or moving blacks to where jobs are located, is unlikely to make a major dent in black employment problems. We also discuss new evidence of labor market networks that are to some extent stratified by race, which may help explain racial mismatch. We then turn to evidence on place-based policies. Many of these, such as enterprise zones and Moving to Opportunity (MTO), are largely ineffective in increasing employment, likely because spatial mismatch is not the core problem facing urban blacks, and because, in the case of MTO, the role of labor market networks was weakened. Finally, we discuss policies focused on place that also target incentives and other expenditures on the residents of the targeted locations, which may do more to take advantage of labor market networks.

Perverse Reverse Price Competition: Average Wholesale Prices and Medicaid Pharmaceutical Spending

Generic drugs comprise an increasing share of total prescriptions dispensed in the U.S., rising from nearly 50% in 1999 to 75% in 2009. The generic drug market has typically been viewed at the wholesale level as a competitive market with price approaching marginal costs. However, the large presence of third party payers as final purchasers may distort prices at the retail level relative to what a standard model of price competition would predict. In this paper, we investigate how generic drug producers compete in the presence of the procurement rules of the Medicaid program. Medicaid reimbursement to pharmacies, like that of other payers, is based on a benchmark price called the average wholesale price (AWP). The AWP is reported by generic producers themselves, and until recently has been subject to essentially no independent verification. As a result, generic producers have had an incentive to compete for pharmacy market share by reporting AWPs that exceed actual average wholesale prices, as this “spread” leads to larger pharmacy profits. In 2000, after a federal government audit of actual wholesale prices of generic products, states were advised to reduce Medicaid reimbursement by as much as 95% for about 400 generic and off-patent drug products. We use variation induced by the timing of this policy along with its differential impact on drug products\u27 Medicaid reimbursement to estimate the impact of this exogenous price change on the market share of targeted products. Our findings indicate that pharmacies did respond to the perverse incentives of the Medicaid program by dispensing products with the highest AWPs. Overall, the Medicaid market share fell by about 45% for targeted drug products as a result of the policy