Reconciling Trends in U.S. Male Earnings Volatility: Results from Survey and Administrative Data / Robert A. Moffitt, John M. Abowd, Christopher R. Bollinger, Michael D. Carr, Charles M. Hokayem, Kevin L. McKinney, Emily E. Wiemers, Sisi Zhang, James P. Ziliak.

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Moffitt, Robert A

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TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w29737.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: One strand of the literature in labor economics, household finance, and macroeconomics has studied whether individual earnings volatility has risen or fallen in the U.S. over the last several decades. There are disagreements in the empirical literature on this question, with some suggestions that the differences are the result of using flawed survey data instead of more accurate administrative data. This paper summarizes the results of a project to reconcile these findings with four different data sets and six different data series--three survey and three administrative data series, including two which match survey respondent data to their administrative data. Four of the six series show no significant trend in male earnings volatility over the last 20-to-30+ years when differences across the data sets are properly accounted for. A fifth shows a positive net trend but small in magnitude. A sixth shows no net trend 1998-2011 and only a small decline thereafter. The remaining differences across data series can be largely explained by differences in the left tail of their cross-sectional earnings distributions. We conclude that the data sets we have analyzed show little evidence of any significant trend in male earnings volatility since the mid-1980s.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w29737 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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February 2022.

One strand of the literature in labor economics, household finance, and macroeconomics has studied whether individual earnings volatility has risen or fallen in the U.S. over the last several decades. There are disagreements in the empirical literature on this question, with some suggestions that the differences are the result of using flawed survey data instead of more accurate administrative data. This paper summarizes the results of a project to reconcile these findings with four different data sets and six different data series--three survey and three administrative data series, including two which match survey respondent data to their administrative data. Four of the six series show no significant trend in male earnings volatility over the last 20-to-30+ years when differences across the data sets are properly accounted for. A fifth shows a positive net trend but small in magnitude. A sixth shows no net trend 1998-2011 and only a small decline thereafter. The remaining differences across data series can be largely explained by differences in the left tail of their cross-sectional earnings distributions. We conclude that the data sets we have analyzed show little evidence of any significant trend in male earnings volatility since the mid-1980s.