Selectivity Bias in Male Wage Equations: Black-White Comparisons
研究因就业率种族差异导致的选择性偏差是否严重干扰成年男性工资函数的估计，发现21-34岁男性无此偏差，但35-54岁男性存在强正向选择性偏差，且低教育对黑人的影响被低估。
Recent studies have documented a significant rise in the male black-white earnings ratio since the mid-1960s. The growing difference in nonemployment rates of blacks and whites clouds these optimistic findings. The basic question addressed in this paper is whether selectivity bias, caused by racial differences in employment rates, is a serious problem in the estimation of wage functions for adult males. For males age 21-34 we found no evidence of selectivity bias, but for the older cohort of males age 35-54, the results are quite different. For both whites and blacks, there is strong positive selection bias. It appears that biased estimates of several important coefficients are obtained using simple ordinary least squares procedures. The most interesting of these are the effect of low education for blacks.