scholarly journals Changes in Unemployment and Wage Inequality: An Alternative Theory and Some Evidence

1999 ◽  
Vol 89 (5) ◽  
pp. 1259-1278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Technical Change ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
Qualitative Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Single Type ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
The Past

I present a model where firms decide what types of jobs to create and then search for suitable workers. When there are few skilled workers and the skilled-unskilled productivity gap is small, firms create a single type of job and recruit all workers. An increase in the proportion of skilled workers or skill-biased technical change can create a qualitative change in the composition of jobs, increasing the demand for skills, wage inequality, and unemployment. I provide some evidence that there has been a change in the composition of jobs in the United States during the past two decades. (JEL E24, J31, J64)

scholarly journals Technological Change and the Productivity Slowdown in Field Crops: United States, 1939-78

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin G. Thirtle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Technical Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Simultaneous Equation ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Partial Adjustment ◽  
Productivity Slowdown ◽  
The Past ◽  
Field Crops ◽  
Partial Adjustment Model

AbstractIn the past four decades, productivity in United States field crops has been transformed by the mechanical and fertilizer revolutions. Since input data are typically not available by crop, most investigations of productivity have been at the aggregate level. This paper develops a simultaneous equation, partial adjustment model of the demand for inputs, which generates estimates of the technical change parameters for wheat, corn, soybeans, and cotton. These estimates allow comparisons of the factor saving biases in technical change, leading to a novel test of the induced innovation hypothesis and the suggestion that the productivity slowdown may yet affect agriculture in the United States.

Globalisation and Wage Inequality: A Comparison of the Manufacturing Sector in Canada and the United States from 1970 to 2001

2009 ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Gilles Grenier ◽  
Akbar Tavakoli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Wage Gap ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
Harmful Effect ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technological Changes ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Economic Globalisation

This article compares Canada and the United States in terms of the evolution of the relative wages of production and non-production workers in the manufacturing sector. The results show that the wage ratio is affected by similar economic globalisation variables in each country. Other than technological changes, however, the overall effect of globalisation is more pronounced in Canada. Among economic globalisation variables, such as technological changes and imports from developing countries, the latter has had a less harmful effect on low-skilled workers in the United States than those in Canada. Among the other variables, the wage gap is more affected by union density in Canada. The impact of immigration is low in both countries.

scholarly journals Transatlantic Differences in Labour Markets: Changes in Wage and Non-Employment Structures in the 1980s and the 1990s

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick A. Puhani
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Apprenticeship Training ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Economics Profession ◽  
Popular View ◽  
Skill Supply

Abstract Rising wage inequality in the United States and Britain and rising continental European unemployment have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the unskilled, combined with flexible wages in the Anglo-Saxon countries, but wage rigidities in continental Europe (‘Krugman hypothesis’). This paper tests this hypothesis based on seven large person-level data sets for the 1980s and the 1990s. I use a more sophisticated categorization of low-skilled workers than previous studies, which exhibits differences between German workers with and without apprenticeship training, particularly in the 1980s. I find evidence for the Krugman hypothesis when Germany is compared with the United States. However, supply changes differ considerably between countries, with Britain experiencing enormous increases in skill supply explaining the relatively constant British skill premium in the 1990s.

Moving Hollywood Abroad: Divided Labor Markets and the New Politics of Trade in Services

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 653-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry A. Chase
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Motion Picture ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Probit Analysis ◽  
Trade In Services ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
New Politics

Theories of trade and domestic politics have been applied extensively to manufacturing and agriculture; the political economy of trade in services, however, remains poorly understood. This article examines how the “offshoring” of services segments labor markets and places low-skilled and high-skilled labor at odds on trade issues. Drawing from a case where trade has been politically contentious of late—motion picture services in the United States—the article finds that offshoring can aggravate wage inequality, creating incentives for low-skilled workers to demand policy remedies. Consistent with this expectation, an ordered probit analysis of labor-group lobbying reveals that low-skilled occupations in motion picture services were most likely to support countervailing duties and Section 301 action against productions filmed abroad. The findings suggest that when services are tradable, labor-market cleavages are not purely factoral or sectoral, but occupational. This new politics of trade in services has important implications for trade policy in the United States and multilateral rulemaking in the World Trade Organization.

scholarly journals Wage Inequality Within and Between Occupations

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Håvard Helland ◽  
Thijs Bol ◽  
Ida Drange
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Important Determinant ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Occupational Characteristics

Western countries, including Scandinavian nations, have witnessed an increase in wage inequality over the past decades. Recent studies attribute rising wage inequality in the United States and United Kingdom primarily to between-occupation inequality, while changes in within-occupation wage inequality were less important for the overall growth. We investigate this hypothesis in the Norwegian context. Our results show a slight increase in inequality from 2003 to 2012, mostly accounted for by between-occupational wage inequality. Occupations became a more important determinant of wages, but the increase in total wage inequality was small. In order to explain trends in wage inequality, we turn to three occupational characteristics: licensure, unionization, and credentialization.

scholarly journals Globalization and U.S. Wages: Modifying Classic Theory to Explain Recent Facts

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Haskel ◽  
Robert Z Lawrence ◽  
Edward E Leamer ◽  
Matthew J Slaughter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Heterogeneous Firms ◽  
The United States ◽  
Real Income ◽  
Large Majority ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Relative Wages ◽  
The Past ◽  
Classic Theory ◽  
Recent Trends

This paper seeks to review how globalization might explain the recent trends in real and relative wages in the United States. We begin with an overview of what is new during the last 10–15 years in globalization, productivity, and patterns of U.S. earnings. To preview our results, we then work through four main findings: First, there is only mixed evidence that trade in goods, intermediates, and services has been raising inequality between more- and less-skilled workers. Second, it is more possible, although far from proven, that globalization has been boosting the real and relative earnings of superstars. The usual trade-in-goods mechanisms probably have not done this. But other globalization channels—such as the combination of greater tradability of services and larger market sizes abroad—may be playing an important role. Third, seeing this possible role requires expanding standard Heckscher–Ohlin trade models, partly by adding insights of more recent research with heterogeneous firms and workers. Finally, our expanded trade framework offers new insights on the sobering fact of pervasive real-income declines for the large majority of Americans in the past decade.

International Research and Variation in Views of Ethnicity

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-72
Author(s):  
Ella Inglebret ◽  
Amy Skinder-Meredith ◽  
Shana Bailey ◽  
Carla Jones ◽  
Ashley France
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Classification System ◽  
International Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
The Past ◽  
International Scale ◽  
Publication Patterns

The authors in this article first identify the extent to which research articles published in three American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) journals included participants, age birth to 18 years, from international backgrounds (i.e., residence outside of the United States), and go on to describe associated publication patterns over the past 12 years. These patterns then provide a context for examining variation in the conceptualization of ethnicity on an international scale. Further, the authors examine terminology and categories used by 11 countries where research participants resided. Each country uses a unique classification system. Thus, it can be expected that descriptions of the ethnic characteristics of international participants involved in research published in ASHA journal articles will widely vary.

Proportion of Individuals With Past-Year Suicidal Ideation Who Attempted Suicide Over the Past 10 Years in the United States, and the Influence of Age and Sex

Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Shannon Lange ◽  
Courtney Bagge ◽  
Charlotte Probst ◽  
Jürgen Rehm
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Suicidal Ideation ◽  
Random Effects ◽  
Attempted Suicide ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Past ◽  
Meta Analyses ◽  
Age Category

Abstract. Background: In recent years, the rate of death by suicide has been increasing disproportionately among females and young adults in the United States. Presumably this trend has been mirrored by the proportion of individuals with suicidal ideation who attempted suicide. Aim: We aimed to investigate whether the proportion of individuals in the United States with suicidal ideation who attempted suicide differed by age and/or sex, and whether this proportion has increased over time. Method: Individual-level data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 2008–2017, were used to estimate the year-, age category-, and sex-specific proportion of individuals with past-year suicidal ideation who attempted suicide. We then determined whether this proportion differed by age category, sex, and across years using random-effects meta-regression. Overall, age category- and sex-specific proportions across survey years were estimated using random-effects meta-analyses. Results: Although the proportion was found to be significantly higher among females and those aged 18–25 years, it had not significantly increased over the past 10 years. Limitations: Data were self-reported and restricted to past-year suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Conclusion: The increase in the death by suicide rate in the United States over the past 10 years was not mirrored by the proportion of individuals with past-year suicidal ideation who attempted suicide during this period.

EDITORIAL: Migration and competitiveness: Japan and the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Philip L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Variable Cost ◽  
Fixed Cost ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Key Sectors ◽  
Past Half

Japan and the United States, the world’s largest economies for most of the past half century, have very different immigration policies. Japan is the G7 economy most closed to immigrants, while the United States is the large economy most open to immigrants. Both Japan and the United States are debating how immigrants are and can con-tribute to the competitiveness of their economies in the 21st centuries. The papers in this special issue review the employment of and impacts of immigrants in some of the key sectors of the Japanese and US economies, including agriculture, health care, science and engineering, and construction and manufacturing. For example, in Japanese agriculture migrant trainees are a fixed cost to farmers during the three years they are in Japan, while US farmers who hire mostly unauthorized migrants hire and lay off workers as needed, making labour a variable cost.

Democratic Legitimacy

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Rosanvallon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
International Debate ◽  
The Past ◽  
Democratic Authority ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Western Democracies

It's a commonplace occurrence that citizens in Western democracies are disaffected with their political leaders and traditional democratic institutions. But this book argues that this crisis of confidence is partly a crisis of understanding. The book makes the case that the sources of democratic legitimacy have shifted and multiplied over the past thirty years and that we need to comprehend and make better use of these new sources of legitimacy in order to strengthen our political self-belief and commitment to democracy. Drawing on examples from France and the United States, the book notes that there has been a major expansion of independent commissions, NGOs, regulatory authorities, and watchdogs in recent decades. At the same time, constitutional courts have become more willing and able to challenge legislatures. These institutional developments, which serve the democratic values of impartiality and reflexivity, have been accompanied by a new attentiveness to what the book calls the value of proximity, as governing structures have sought to find new spaces for minorities, the particular, and the local. To improve our democracies, we need to use these new sources of legitimacy more effectively and we need to incorporate them into our accounts of democratic government. This book is an original contribution to the vigorous international debate about democratic authority and legitimacy.

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