CONTENTS
Preface = ⅶ
1. Introduction and Motivation = 1
1.1 Motivation = 1
1.2 Principles of comparison = 4
1.3 Description and summarization = 6
1.4 Graphical displays = 7
1.5 Numerical summary measures = 8
1.6 Limitations = 9
1.7 Organization of book = 10
Background material = 12
Computational issues = 13
Exercises = 13
2. The Relative Distribution = 15
2.1 Basic distributional concepts = 15
2.2 The relative distribution = 21
2.3 Using a known reference distribution = 27
2.4 History and literature = 30
Background material = 37
Computational issues = 38
Exercises = 38
3. Location, Scale and Shape Decomposition = 41
3.1 Decomposing the relative distribution = 44
3.2 Further decomposition of shape = 45
Exercises = 47
4. Application : White Men's Earnings 1967－1997 = 49
4.1 Background = 49
4.2 Data = 50
4.3 Findings = 52
4.4 Discussion = 58
Exercises = 60
5. Summary Measures = 63
5.1 Motivation = 63
5.2 Measuring distributional divergence = 64
5.3 Two measures of distributional divergence = 66
5.4 Effect summary statistics = 67
5.5 Measures motivated by hypothesis testing = 68
5.6 Measuring distributional polarization = 69
Background material = 73
Exercises = 73
6. Application : Earnings by Race and Sex：1967－1997 = 75
6.1 Background = 75
6.2 Data = 76
6.3 Findings = 76
6.4 Discussion = 86
Exercises = 87
7. Adjustment for Covariates = 89
7.1 Compositional adjustment = 90
7.2 Comparison of composition－adjusted distributions = 92
7.3 Further decomposition by location／shape = 94
7.4 Adjusting for multiple covariatcs = 95
7.5 Categorical contrasts = 98
Exercises = 99
8. Application : Comparing Wage Mobility in Two Eras = 101
8.1 Background = 101
8.2 Data = 101
8.3 Findings = 102
Exercises = 117
9. Inference for the Relative Distribution = 121
9.1 Estimation when the reference distribution is known = 122
9.2 Estimation when both distributions arc unknown = 140
9.3 Estimation for a pooled reference group = 148
9.4 Estimation when the data are censored = 150
9.5 Estimation when the data are weighted = 152
9.6 Confidence intervals and confidence bands = 153
Background material = 155
Computational issues = 156
Exercises = 157
10. Inference for Summary Measures = 159
10.1 Inference for two measures of distributional difference = 159
10.2 Measures motivated by hypothesis testing = 160
10.3 Inference for the median relative polarization = 164
10.4 Computing standard errors = 168
10.5 Statistical properties of estimates of the upper and lower indices = 170
10.6 Tests of significance and multiple comparisons = 171
10.7 Bootstrap confidence intervals and achieved significance level = 173
Background material = 175
Exercises = 175
11. The Relative Distribution for Discrete Data = 179
11.1 The discrete relative distribution = 179
11.2 Application : men's and women's hours worked = 181
11.3 Inference when the reference distribution is known = 185
11.4 Inference for the discrete relative distribution = 186
11.5 Grouped data = 188
11.6 Inference for the relative polarization indices = 190
Background material = 194
Exercises = 194
12. Application : Changes in the Distribution of Hours Wbrked1 = 197
12.1 Background = 197
12.2 Data = 199
12.3 Findings = 200
12.4 Discussion = 210
Exercises = 210
13. Quantile Regression = 213
13.1 Estimation of quantiles = 213
13.2 Motivation for quantile regression = 216
13.3 Linear quantile regression = 221
13.4 Nonparametric quantile regression = 224
Background material = 226
Exercises = 227
Appendices = 229
A. Descriptions of the data sets = 229
B. More on computational issues = 229
C. Estimation of permanent, wages and wage growth = 230
D. Proof of some results in Chapter 9 = 230
E. Proof of results in Chapter 10 = 238
F. Properties of the quasirelative data under equality = 241
References = 243
Subject Index = 259
