Plant Productivity Dispersion and the College Premium: Evidence from the United States 1977-1997

Abstract

For the United States in 1987-2014, I document at business cycle frequencies that the high-skill workers’ employer size wage premium is high (low) in times of low (high) unemployment relative to that of the low-skill workers. Specifically, the differential employer size wage premium between high-skill and low-skill workers has an unconditional correlation of -0.4 with the unemployment rate, and varies by about 6 percent over the business cycle. The skill premium itself does not exhibit a clear business cycle pattern over the sample period.