This book provides a careful historical analysis of the co-evolution of educational attainment and the wage structure in the United States through the twentieth century. The authors propose that the twentieth century was not only the American Century but also the Human Capital Century. That is, the American educational system is what made America the richest nation in the world. Its educational system had always been less elite than that of most European nations. By 1900 the U.S. had begun to educate its masses at the secondary level, not just in the primary schools that had remarkable success in the nineteenth century. The book argues that technological change, education, and inequality have been involved in a kind of race. During the first eight decades of the twentieth century, the increase of educated workers was higher than the demand for them. This had the effect of boosting income for most people and lowering inequality. However, the reverse has been true since about 1980. This educational slowdown was accompanied by rising inequality. The authors discuss the complex reasons for this, and what might be done to ameliorate it.

This paper examines the effect of skill-biased technological change on the structure of wages, the composition of employment and the level of unemployment in a two-sector economy with a heterogenous work force. Efficiency wage considerations and minimum wage legislation lead to labor market segmentation. A technological shock that reduces the demand for unskilled labor and raises the demand for skilled labor in the primary, high-wage sector is shown to increase the relative wage of skilled workers and reduce aggregate employment as well as the employment level of unskilled workers in that sector. The net effect of the shock on the employment level of skilled workers is mitigated by the existence of efficiency factors.

This volume honours the contributions Claudia Goldin has made to scholarship and teaching in economic history and labour economics. The chapters address some closely integrated issues: the role of human capital in the long-term development of the American economy, trends in fertility and marriage, and women's participation in economic change.

Exploring a new agenda to improve outcomes for American workers As the United States continues to struggle with the impact of the devastating COVID-19 recession, policymakers have an opportunity to redress the competition problems in our labor markets. Making the right policy choices, however, requires a deep understanding of long-term, multidimensional problems. That will be solved only by looking to the failures and unrealized opportunities in anti-trust and labor law. For decades, competition in the U.S. labor market has declined, with the result that American workers have experienced slow wage growth and diminishing job quality. While sluggish productivity growth, rising globalization, and declining union representation are traditionally cited as factors for this historic imbalance in economic power, weak competition in the labor market is increasingly being recognized as a factor as well. This book by noted experts frames the legal and economic consequences of this imbalance and presents a series of urgently needed reforms of both labor and anti-trust laws to improve outcomes for American workers. These include higher wages, safer workplaces, increased ability to report labor violations, greater mobility, more opportunities for workers to build power, and overall better labor protections. Inequality in the Labor Market will interest anyone who cares about building a progressive economic agenda or who has a marked interest in labor policy. It also will appeal to anyone hoping to influence or anticipate the much-needed progressive agenda for the United States. The book's unusual scope provides prescriptions that, as Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz notes in the introduction, map a path for rebalancing power, not just in our economy but in our democracy.

This book examines how the progress of digital technology is transforming the world of work, skill demand, labour market institutions, and regulations in countries like India. It studies the challenges, opportunities, and current and future contributions of digital technologies. The volume poses salient questions regarding the ICT sector, I4.0 technologies, the gig economy, remote work, and the regulatory environment, and interrogates the policy and regulatory measures needed to promote more inclusive and decent work in the future. Part of the Towards Sustainable Futures series, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of economics, sustainable development, sociology of work, labour economics, Indian economy, public policy, and human resource management. It will also be extremely useful to policymakers, government organisations, civil society organisations, and those in the corporate sector.

Demand for less skilled workers decreased dramatically in the US and in other developed countries over the past two decades. We argue that pervasive skill-biased technological change rather than increased trade with the developing world is the principal culprit. The pervasiveness of this technological change is important for two reasons. First, it is an immediate and testable implication of technological change. Second, under standard assumptions, the more pervasive the skill-biased technological change the greater the increase in the embodied supply of less skilled workers and the greater the depressing effect on their relative wages through world goods prices. In contrast, in the Heckscher-Ohlin model with small open economies, the skill-bias of local technological changes does not affect wages. Thus, pervasiveness deals with a major criticism of skill-biased technological change as a cause. Testing the implications of pervasive, skill-biased technological change we find strong supporting evidence. First, across the OECD, most industries have increased the proportion of skilled workers employed despite rising or stable relative wages. Second, increases in demand for skills were concentrated in the same manufacturing industries in different developed countries.

A guide to the continually evolving field of labour economics.