Labour Market Reforms and Changes in Wage Inequality in the United Kingdom and the United States / Amanda Gosling, Thomas Lemieux.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gosling, Amanda.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lemieux, Thomas.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w8413.

NBER working paper series no. w8413

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2001.

Summary:

This paper compares trends in male and female hourly wage inequality in the United Kingdom and the United States between 1979 and 1998. Our main finding is that the extent and pattern of wage inequality became increasingly similar in the two countries during this period. We attribute this convergence to 'U.S. style' reforms in the U.K. labour market. In particular, we argue that the much steeper decline in unionisation in the United Kingdom explains why inequality increased faster than in the United States. For women, we conclude that the fall and subsequent recovery in the real value of the U.S. minimum wage explains why wage inequality increased faster in the United States than in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, while the opposite happened during the 1990s. Interestingly, the introduction of the National Minimum Wage in the U.K. in 1999 also contributed to the convergence in labour market institutions and wage inequality between the two countries.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2001.