Sector employment, wage gaps, and sector wage gap differentials in the labor market for doctorates
Date
Authors
Major Professor
Advisor
Committee Member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Altmetrics
Authors
Research Projects
Organizational Units
The Department of Economic Science was founded in 1898 to teach economic theory as a truth of industrial life, and was very much concerned with applying economics to business and industry, particularly agriculture. Between 1910 and 1967 it showed the growing influence of other social studies, such as sociology, history, and political science. Today it encompasses the majors of Agricultural Business (preparing for agricultural finance and management), Business Economics, and Economics (for advanced studies in business or economics or for careers in financing, management, insurance, etc).
History
The Department of Economic Science was founded in 1898 under the Division of Industrial Science (later College of Liberal Arts and Sciences); it became co-directed by the Division of Agriculture in 1919. In 1910 it became the Department of Economics and Political Science. In 1913 it became the Department of Applied Economics and Social Science; in 1924 it became the Department of Economics, History, and Sociology; in 1931 it became the Department of Economics and Sociology. In 1967 it became the Department of Economics, and in 2007 it became co-directed by the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Business.
Dates of Existence
1898–present
Historical Names
- Department of Economic Science (1898–1910)
- Department of Economics and Political Science (1910-1913)
- Department of Applied Economics and Social Science (1913–1924)
- Department of Economics, History and Sociology (1924–1931)
- Department of Economics and Sociology (1931–1967)
Related Units
- College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (parent college)
- College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (parent college)
- College of Business (parent college)
Journal Issue
Is Version Of
Versions
Series
Department
Abstract
This thesis consists of two chapters. These chapters are presented as separate journal articles, although both chapters deal with doctorates in the labor market. Chapter I examines the supply and demand motivations of agents in a labor market for Ph.D.s that is segmented by sector. Labor is heterogeneous across sectors in that individuals with the same skills may earn different wages in different sectors. This can be attributed to sector differences in the organizational structure of work, and differences in the pricing of sector-specific output. Sector employers maximize profits by offering a prospective employee a wage equal to the employee's estimated value of marginal product in that sector. Prospective employees select employment in the sector that yields the highest degree of utility in employment. Employees maximize utility based on personal tastes (that are inherently identified by demographic characteristics) and on the wages offered to them by employers in different sectors. Wage offers are assumed to be determined independent of employees' supply decisions (i.e. they are exogenous in the utility maximization problem).;Chapter 2 presents an analysis of wage differences across gender and race categories. It performs wage gap decompositions that determine the portions of the wage gap attributed to differences in the stock of human capital and differences in employer valuation of gender- and race-specific human capital. Moreover, Chapter 2 examines sector differences in these wage gaps. It decomposes sector wage gap differentials into observed and unobserved human capital and price effects. The observed human capital effect (also known as the observed X effect) evaluates sector differences in the relative human capital stocks of gender and race categories. The observed price effect calculates the contribution of sector differences in the valuation of male human capital to the sector wage gap differentials. The unobserved human capital, or gap effect, calculates the contribution of sector differences in the residual wage position of females in the male distribution to the sector wage gap differentials. The unobserved price effect calculates the contribution of sector differences in male residual wage dispersion to the sector wage gap differentials.