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Earnings Inequality and Coordination Costs: Evidence From U.S. Law Firms

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  • Luis Garicano
  • Thomas Hubbard

Abstract

Earnings inequality has increased substantially since the 1970s. Using evidence from confidential Census data on U.S. law offices on lawyers' organization and earnings, we study the extent to which the mechanism suggested by Lucas (1978) and Rosen (1982), a scale of operations effect linking spans of control and earnings inequality, is responsible increases in inequality. We first show that earnings inequality among lawyers increased substantially between 1977 and 1992, and that the distribution of partner-associate ratios across offices changed in ways consistent with the hypothesis that coordination costs fell during this period. We then propose a "hierarchical production function" in which output is the product of skill and time and estimate its parameters, applying insights from the equilibrium assignment literature. We find that coordination costs fell broadly and steadily during this period, so that hiring one's first associate leveraged a partner's skill by about 30% more in 1992 than 1977. We find also that changes in lawyers' hierarchical organization account for about 2/3 of the increase in earnings inequality among lawyers in the upper tail, but a much smaller share of the increase in inequality between lawyers in the upper tail and other lawyers. These findings indicate that new organizational efficiencies potentially explain increases in inequality, especially among individuals toward the top of the earnings distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Garicano & Thomas Hubbard, 2009. "Earnings Inequality and Coordination Costs: Evidence From U.S. Law Firms," NBER Working Papers 14741, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14741
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    1. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
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    11. Garicano, Luis & Hubbard, Thomas N, 2007. "Managerial Leverage Is Limited by the Extent of the Market: Hierarchies, Specialization, and the Utilization of Lawyers' Human Capital," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(1), pages 1-43, February.
    12. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    13. Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "Organization and Inequality in a Knowledge Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1383-1435.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kuhn, Moritz & Luo, Jinfeng & Manovskii, Iourii & Qiu, Xincheng, 2023. "Coordinated firm-level work processes and macroeconomic resilience," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 107-127.
    2. Enzo Dia & Jacques Melitz, 2024. "The impact of common law on the volume of legal services: An international study," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 265-297, January.
    3. Bertrand Candelon & Arnaud Dupuy, 2015. "Hierarchical Organization And Performance Inequality: Evidence From Professional Cycling," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1207-1236, November.
    4. Adel Ben Youssef & Coetzee Bester & Aduba Chuka & Mounir Dahmani & Beverley Malan, 2014. "Building e-skills in Africa," Post-Print hal-03737364, HAL.
      • Ben Youssef, Adel & Bester, Coetzee & Chuka, Aduba & Dahmani, Mounir & Malan, Beverley, 2014. "Building e-skills in Africa," MPRA Paper 112240, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2014.
    5. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-044 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Garicano, Luis, 2010. "Policemen, managers, lawyers: New results on complementarities between organization and information and communication technology," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 355-358, July.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure

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