Discrimination and Skill Differences in an Equilibrium Search Model

In this paper we analyze an equilibrium search model with three sources for age and unemployment differentials among workers with the same (observed) human capital, but different appearance (race): unobserved productivity (skill), search intensities and discrimination (Becker 1957) due to an appearance-based employer disutility factor. Because these sources affect the earnings distributions differently, empirical identification of these potential sources for the explanation of wage and unemployment differentials is possible.