This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Journal of Economic Perspectives
  4. Spring 1997
  5. Institutional Changes and Rising Wage Inequality: Is There a Linkage?

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

Institutional Changes and Rising Wage Inequality: Is There a Linkage?

  • Nicole M. Fortin
  • Thomas Lemieux
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 11, no. 2, Spring 1997
(pp. 75–96)
Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

Abstract

In this paper, the authors analyze the role of three institutional changes--the decline in the real value of the minimum wage, deunionization, and economic deregulation--on the rise in wage inequality in the United States during the 1980s. They argue that about a third of the increase in male and female wage inequality can be traced to these institutional changes. Deunionization had a significant effect on the rise in inequality for men, while the minimum wage is what matters most for women. The authors find the direct impact of economic deregulation to be comparatively small.

Citation

Fortin, Nicole M., and Thomas Lemieux. 1997. "Institutional Changes and Rising Wage Inequality: Is There a Linkage?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 11 (2): 75–96. DOI: 10.1257/jep.11.2.75

JEL Classification

  • J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment