Individuals without a college degree in the United States have experienced a relative decline in labor market and other opportunities. This is especially the case for lower-educated white men who entered the labor market in the early 1980s and after. These trends are not exclusive to the United States; in theUnitedKingdom and elsewhere, thosewithout a college degree have fared poorly since the early 1980s. For the United States, the raw statistics point to one of the largest declines for developed economies. There has been a fall in (relative) real earnings for the low educated, especially white men. There appears to be almost no wage progression over the working life for low-educated men and women. There is strong assortativeness by wages in marriage such that the increasing labor market participation of women has not offset the growth in earnings inequality for couple households. In addition, medical costs have risen, especially in terms of social care, and perhaps most surprisingly, mortality has risen. Motivated by these trends, the authors specify a life-cycle model that includes marriage and divorce, human capital accumulation, medical expenditures, and changing life expectancy. They use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Health and Retirement Survey to construct a sample of white, non-college-educated Americans. Sample moments are then used to estimate the model. Counterfactual simulations are then used to ask: What if the 1940s cohort of non-college-educated white Americans had experienced the wages, the medical expenses, and the mortality of the 1960s cohort? The “what if” is for labor market participation, hours, savings, and welfare. In this discussion, I first examine the trends in outcomes for these different groups over this period in the United States. I then briefly run

中文翻译：

---

评论

在美国没有大学学位的个人在劳动力市场和其他机会方面经历了相对下降。对于在 1980 年代初及之后进入劳动力市场的受教育程度较低的白人男性来说尤其如此。这些趋势并非美国独有；在英国和其他地方，自 1980 年代初以来，没有大学学位的人境况不佳。对美国而言，原始统计数据表明，这是发达经济体降幅最大的国家之一。受教育程度低的人（尤其是白人男性）的（相对）实际收入有所下降。受教育程度低的男性和女性在整个工作生涯中似乎几乎没有工资增长。婚姻中的工资具有很强的分类性，因此女性越来越多的劳动力市场参与并没有抵消夫妻家庭收入不平等的增长。此外，医疗成本上升，尤其是在社会护理方面，也许最令人惊讶的是，死亡率上升了。在这些趋势的推动下，作者指定了一个生命周期模型，其中包括结婚和离婚、人力资本积累、医疗支出和不断变化的预期寿命。他们使用收入动态面板研究和健康与退休调查的数据来构建一个非大学教育的白人美国人样本。然后使用样本矩来估计模型。然后使用反事实模拟来询问：如果 1940 年代的非大学教育白人群体经历了工资，会怎样？医疗费用，以及 1960 年代人群的死亡率？“假设”是关于劳动力市场参与、工作时间、储蓄和福利。在这次讨论中，我首先检查了美国这一时期这些不同群体的结果趋势。然后我简短地运行