Sources of Earnings Dispersion in a Linked Employer-Employee Dataset: Evidence from Norway.

We estimate a standard human capital earnings model, augmented to allow for different firm-specific wage premia. The earnings of an individual depend on her human capital bundle and the earnings mark-up of the firm she is currently working for. We use linked employer-employee data from Norway which allows us to directly estimate the skill premium as a function of firm specific variables such as plant size, the capital/labour ratio, market share, unionisation and openness to trade. We document the impact of job reallocation and skill sorting on earnings dispersion. We find a large potential effect of labour reallocation on earnings dispersion.