Inequality and Schooling Responses to Globalization Forces: Lessons from History / Jeffrey G. Williamson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Williamson, Jeffrey G.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w12553.

NBER working paper series no. w12553

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Inequality and Schooling Responses to Globalization Forces

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2006.

Summary:

In the first global century before 1914, trade and especially migration had profound effects on both low-wage, labor abundant Europe and the high-wage, labor scarce New World. Those global forces contributed to a reduction in unskilled labor scarcity in the New World and to a rise in unskilled labor scarcity in Europe. Thus, it contributed to rising inequality in overseas countries, like the United States, and falling inequality in most of Europe. Falling unskilled labor scarcity and rising skill scarcity contributed to the high school revolution in the US. Rising unskilled scarcity also contributed to the primary schooling and literacy revolution in Europe. Under what conditions would we expect the same responses to globalization in today’s world? This paper argues that modern debates about inequality and schooling responses to globalization should pay more attention to history.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2006.