Understanding the Evolution of the U.S. Wage Distribution: A Theoretical Analysis

Fatih Guvenen, Burhanettin Kuruscu

NBER Working Paper No. 13096
Issued in May 2007

---- Acknowledgements -----

We are especially grateful to Daron Acemoglu for comments and suggestions that substantially improved the paper. For helpful discussions and comments, we thank Paul Beaudry, Satyajit Chatterjee, Dean Corbae, Gueorgui Kambourov, Larry Katz, Per Krusell, Tom Sargent, Rob Shimer, Tony Smith, Kjetil Storesletten, Aleh Tsyvinski, Gustavo Ventura, Gianluca Violante, Amir Yaron, and especially David Autor and Steve Davis, as well as the seminar participants at Carnegie Mellon University, European University Institute, Georgetown University, Goethe University Frankfurt, HEC Lausanne, Humboldt University, LSE, NYU, Rice University, Stony Brook, University of Michigan, University of Rochester, University of Toulouse, UT-Austin, University of Zurich, Yale University, York University, the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Cleveland, and Philadelphia, NBER's Economic Fluctuations and Growth Meeting in Cambridge, the Minnesota Macro Workshop, the "Labor Supply and Life-Cycle Productivity" Workshop organized by the Bank of Canada, the 20th Canadian Macro Study Group Workshop, and the SED conference. Guvenen acknowledges financial support from the National Science Foundation (SES-0649437). An earlier longer version of this paper circulated under the title "Understanding Wage Inequality: Ben-Porath Meets Skill-Biased Technical Change." The usual disclaimer applies. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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