Wage Risk and the Skill Premium
研究发现美国近五十年技能溢价上升，部分原因是工资风险增加促使人们增加预防性储蓄，进而推动资本积累，由于资本与技能互补，最终拉大了技能溢价。
Abstract The skill premium has increased significantly in the United States in the last five decades. During the same period, individual wage risk has also increased. This paper proposes a mechanism through which a rise in wage risk increases the skill premium. Intuitively, a rise in uninsured wage risk increases precautionary savings, thereby boosting capital accumulation, which increases the skill premium due to capital-skill complementarity. Using a quantitative macroeconomic model, we find that the rise in wage risk observed between 1967 and 2010 increases the skill premium significantly. This finding is robust across a variety of model specifications.