Measuring the Gap between Wage and Productivity: Wage-Tenure Profile and Productivity-Tenure Profile Cross Twice

This paper proposes a new empirical method to measure the gap between wage and productivity of workers. Our method aggregates Mincer-type human capital function of all workers of a firm and obtains the total labor input. We put it into the Cobb-Douglas production function and estimate the coefficients of gap between wage and productivity. Applying the method to employer-employee matched panel data, we find that wagetenure profile and productivity-tenure profile intersect twice. The wage is higher than the productivity in junior years, then surpassed by the productivity in middle age, and becomes higher again in late career. The results are consistent with both of Becker's firm sponsored training model and Lazear's deferred compensation model.