Do Male-Female Wage Differentials Reflect Differences in the Return to Skill? Cross-City Evidence from 1980–2000
利用美国跨城市数据，研究发现个人电脑的普及通过改变技能价格，解释了1980年以来男女工资差距缩小的主要原因。
Male-female wage gaps declined significantly over the 1980s and 1990s, while returns to education increased. In this paper, we use cross-city data to explore whether, like the return to education, the change in the gender wage gap may reflect changes in skill prices induced by the diffusion of information technology. We show that male-female and education-wage differentials moved in opposite directions in response to the adoption of PCs. Our most credible estimates imply that changes in skill prices driven by PC adoption can explain most of the decline in the US male-female wage gap since 1980.