Determination of Wages
Instructor: Derek Neal (University of Chicago)
This course explores determinants of wage and earnings inequality both among individuals and various groups in society.
Course Outline
1. Life Cycle Wage Growth and the Evolution of Earnings Distributions as Cohorts Age
- Human Capital
- Matching
- Sorting
2. Investments in Formal Schooling and the Distribution of Earnings
- Equalizing Differences
- Equality of Opportunity
- Heterogeneity in Returns
3. The Creation of Inequality Through Incentives
- Allocation of talent to tasks
- Span of Control
- Selection and Assignment
4. Race and Labor Market Inequality
- Employment and Selection
- Taste Based Discrimination
- Statistical Models of Discrimination
- Barriers to Convergence
5. Gender and Labor Market Inequality
- Composition and Selection Bias
- Occupational Segregation
- Rat Races vs Efficient Selection
Derek Neal is Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. In recent years, he has focused his research efforts on racial inequality in the United States and on the design of education policy. From 2005 until 2009, he directed the Chicago Workshop on Black-White Inequality. This workshop involved a series of one day conferences that explored various aspects on Black-White Inequality in the United States. The workshop began as a response to his Handbook of Economics of Education chapter entitled “Why Has Black-White Skill Convergence Stopped?” which carefully documented the stagnation of Black relative progress with respect to human capital beginning in the late 1980s.
Professor Nealʼs current research focuses on the design of incentive systems for educators. His work explores the design flaws in current performance pay and accountability systems and also highlights the advantages of providing incentives through contests between schools.
He is the current President of the Midwest Economics Association, a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, and an editor of the Journal of Political Economy.
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