The Racial Wage Gap: The Importance of Labor Force Attachment Differences across Black, Mexican, and White Men
利用NLSY数据，发现黑人和墨西哥裔男性的实际工作经验远低于潜在经验，使用潜在经验会高估教育对种族工资差距的解释力，而低估实际经验差异的作用。
Labor market attachment differs significantly across black, Mexican and white men; black and Mexican men are more likely to experience unemployment and out of the labor force spells than are white men. While it has long been agreed that potential experience is a poor proxy of actual experience for women, many view it as an acceptable approximation for men. Using the NLSY, this paper documents the substantial difference between potential and actual experience for both black and Mexican men. We show that the fraction of the black/white and Mexican/white wage gaps that are explained by differences in potential experience are very different than the fraction of the racial wage gaps that are explained by actual (real) experience differences. We further show that the fraction of the racial wage gap explained by education is substantially overstated when potential experience is used instead of actual experience.