Via @interfluidity, argument that wage inequality is increasing because it's easier to assess worker quality, so the most productive workers are self-segregating into high-profit firms leaving everyone else at low-profit firms. See also this post on job polarization.

I completely believe this dynamic exists. There's a related story playing out in online advertising, where the ability to target specific kinds of consumers has reduced the broad-based advertising that a lot of general interest online publications depended on.

My first thought was how to reconcile this with continued hiring discrimination, but I guess that's not actually hard. It just means that while firms have gotten better at picking out high-productivity workers from the available pool, they're still - partially intentionally, partially unintentionally - artificially limiting the size of that pool.

I have a harder time reconciling the stronger claims in the top post with the evidence that monopoly rents are a major driver of corporate profit inquality. I asked Waldman about this and ...

@lukasb @hamandcheese the notion of “productivity” from a firm’s perspective cld mean “well equipped to collaborate to contest for rents”

— Steve Randy Waldman (@interfluidity) August 19, 2016

Sad lol.