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Wages, Unemployment and Inequality with Heterogeneous Firms and Workers

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Author Info
Elhanan Helpman
Oleg Itskhoki
Stephen Redding

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Abstract

In this paper we develop a multi-sector general equilibrium model of firm heterogeneity, worker heterogeneity and labor market frictions. We characterize the distributions of employment, unemployment, wages and income within and between sectors as a function of structural parameters. We find that greater firm heterogeneity increases unemployment, wage inequality and income inequality, whereas greater worker heterogeneity has ambiguous effects. We also find that labor market frictions have non-monotonic effects on aggregate unemployment and inequality through within- and between-sector components. Finally, high-ability workers have the lowest unemployment rates but the greatest wage inequality, and income inequality is lowest for intermediate ability. Although these results are interesting in their own right, the main contribution of the paper is in providing a framework for analyzing these types of issues.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14122.

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Date of creation: Jun 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14122

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior
D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Capital and Total Factor Productivity; Capacity
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Matilde Bombardini & Giovanni Gallipoli & Germán Pupato, 2009. "Skill Dispersion and Trade Flows," NBER Working Papers 15097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2008. "Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy," NBER Working Papers 14478, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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