Changes in unemployment, real wages and productivity relative to trend during the 2008-2009 recession

By 1939 rising living standards provided access to an array of durable goods that many people regarded as necessities, but would have been beyond the dreams of their parents twenty-five years earlier. Rising real wages, falling fertility rates, and an expansion and liberalization of consumer credit, collectively made affordable goods that cost several weeks’, months’, or (in the case of housing) years’ income. This chapter examines these trends and then discusses their impacts on household demand for durable goods. For most durables, demand is shown to have risen substantially faster than incomes, producing a major rise in their share of total consumer expenditure. This was partly driven by technological improvements, though successful marketing (both of the goods and the consumer credit that made them affordable) also played a key role.

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Understanding Rising Income Inequality and Stagnating Ordinary Living Standards in Germany

10.1093/oso/9780198807032.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Gerhard Bosch ◽

Thorsten Kalina

Keyword(s):

Income Inequality ◽

Labour Market ◽

Economic Crisis ◽

Household Income ◽

Wage Bargaining ◽

Living Standards ◽

Social Model ◽

Real Wages ◽

The Impact ◽

Over Time

This chapter describes how inequality and real incomes have evolved in Germany through the period from the 1980s, through reunification, up to the economic Crisis and its aftermath. It brings out how reunification was associated with a prolonged stagnation in real wages. It emphasizes how the distinctive German structures for wage bargaining were eroded over time, and the labour market and tax/transfer reforms of the late 1990s-early/mid-2000s led to increasing dualization in the labour market. The consequence was a marked increase in household income inequality, which went together with wage stagnation for much of the 1990s and subsequently. Coordination between government, employers, and unions still sufficed to avoid the impact the economic Crisis had on unemployment elsewhere, but the German social model has been altered fundamentally over the period

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Employment, Output and Real Wages*

Economic Record ◽

10.1111/j.1475-4932.1990.tb02526.x ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 67 (1) ◽

pp. 34-45 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

BILL RUSSELL ◽

WARREN TEASE

Keyword(s):

Real Wages

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AGRICULTURAL WORKERS’ STANDARD OF LIVING DURING CENTRAL CHILE'S AGRARIAN EXPANSION, CF. 1870-1930

Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History ◽

10.1017/s0212610921000100 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-30

Author(s):

Claudio Robles-Ortiz ◽

Ignacio González-Correa ◽

Nora Reyes Campos ◽

Uziel González Aliaga

Keyword(s):

Living Standards ◽

Standard Of Living ◽

Real Wages ◽

Causal Factors ◽

Central Chile ◽

Rural Workers ◽

The Great Depression ◽

Urban Workers ◽

Wage Labour ◽

Agricultural Labourers

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to determine trends in the wages and living standards of male agricultural labourers in Central Chile during the agrarian expansion, c. 1870-1930. We found that nominal wages increased eightfold; this is relevant because wage labour became the main rural labour regime in this period. Nominal wages rose steadily from the early 1870s until 1910, and with significant fluctuations thereafter, before plummeting with the Great Depression. Real wages also increased, but only slightly. Furthermore, during certain short periods, agricultural labourers' real wages were similar to or higher than those of low-skilled urban workers. However, the persistent gap between agricultural and non-agricultural wages was one of the causal factors of the outmigration of rural workers.

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The impact of international migration on real wages

Journal of Development Economics ◽

10.1016/0304-3878(89)90037-0 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 185-192 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz

Keyword(s):

International Migration ◽

Real Wages ◽

The Impact

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