Beyond Oaxaca-Blinder:Accounting for Differences in Household Income DistributionsAcross Countries

[摘要] The authors develop a microeconometricmethod to account for differences across distributions ofhousehold income. Going beyond the determination of earningsin labor markets, they also estimate statistical models foroccupational choice and for conditional distributions ofeducation, fertility, and nonlabor incomes. The authorsimport combinations of estimated parameters from thesemodels to simulate counterfactual income distributions. Thisallows them to decompose differences between functionals oftwo income distributions (such as inequality or povertymeasures) into shares because of differences in thestructure of labor market returns (price effects),differences in the occupational structure, and differencesin the underlying distribution of assets (endowmenteffects). The authors apply the method to the differencesbetween the Brazilian income distribution and those ofMexico and the United States, and find that most ofBrazil's excess income inequality is due to underlyinginequalities in the distribution of two key endowments:access to education and to sources of nonlabor income,mainly pensions.

[发布日期] 2002-04-30 [发布机构] World Bank, Washington, D.C.

[学科分类] 社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

[关键词] HOUSEHOLD INCOME;LABOR MARKETS;OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE;INCOME DISTRIBUTION;OCCUPATIONAL STRUCTURE