Toward a Theory of Income Determination

The goal of this article is to construct a theoretical framework for the study of income determination that incorporates elements of three major approaches we characterize as status attainment, human capital, and structural approaches. These three approaches are briefly reviewed and criticized. The framework is introduced through the theoretical concepts of the social relations of production and exchange, the sociotechnical relations of production, and individual characteristics. Hypotheses are introduced and data and measures are generated to test them. In general, the model and its measures perform promisingly.