Secular trends in United States income and earnings distribution

US income and earnings inequality has increased nearly unabated since the early 1970s. This dissertation consists of three essays that attempt to model and explain these trends. A common theme throughout these chapters is that much of the change in both income and earnings dispersion is related to three major secular trends. Two of these trends are found in the labor market, the loss of manufacturing jobs coupled with the increase of service sector employment and the increase in labor market participation of females. The third trend that is found-to greatly impact income distribution is the recent rapid increase of interest income.;The first essay examines these and other factors believed to account for the recent increase in income inequality. The second uses these same three variables in a model of changes in income shares over the business cycle. The third essay focuses on changes in relative earnings of full time workers disaggregated by age, gender, and education.;In each essay both the trends in dependent and the explanatory variables are found to be nonstationary processes. Consequently, proper econometrics techniques are employed to measures the relationships among variables. In all cases, cointegration is found to exist among variables.