TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cawley,John
AU  - Heckman,James
AU  - Vytlacil,Edward
TI  - Meritocracy in America: An Examination of Wages Within and Across Occupations
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6446
PY  - 1998
Y2  - March 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6446
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6446.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John Cawley
3M24 MVR Hall
Department of Policy Analysis and Management
and Department of Economics
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853
Tel: 607/255-0952
Fax: 607/255-4071
E-Mail: jhc38@cornell.edu

James J. Heckman
Department of Economics
The University of Chicago
1126 E. 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/702-0634
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: jjh@uchicago.edu

Edward J. Vytlacil
Department of Economics
Yale University
Box 208281
New Haven, CT 06520-8281
Tel: 203/432-3244
Fax: 203/432-6167
E-Mail: edward.vytlacil@yale.edu
AB  - In The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray argue that the U.S. economy is a meritocracy in which differences in wages (including differences across race and gender) are explained by differences in cognitive ability.  In this paper we test their claim for wages conditional on occupation using a simultaneous model of occupation choice and wage determination.  Our results contradict Herrnstein and Murray's claim that the U.S. labor market operates only on meritocratic principles.
ER  -