Changes in the U.S. Wage Structure 1963-1987: Application of Quantile Regression.

A recently developed quantile regression technique, which parsimoniously describes the entire conditional distribution, is applied to every March Current Population Survey since 1964. The study examines changes in the returns to schooling and experience at different points of the wage distribution and changes in within-group wage inequality. The results from the one-group and sixteen-group linear models show that the returns to schooling and experience differ across quantiles of the wage distribution but that their patterns of change are similar. Significant differences in wage inequality are also found across the various skill groups. Copyright 1994 by The Econometric Society.