This paper proposes a new mechanism linking trade and wage inequality in developing countries --- the quality-upgrading mechanism --- and investigates its empirical implications in panel data on Mexican manufacturing plants. In a model with heterogeneous plants and quality-differentiated goods,...

How should a policy-maker prioritize interventions to improve the public infrastructure with which firms operate and how large are the benefits from doing so likely to be? To address these questions we use survey data on the obstacles arising from poor quality public inputs that managers face in...

This paper offers an alternative theory for the increase in unemployment and wage inequality experienced in the United States over the past two decades. In my model firms decide the composition of jobs and then match with skilled and unskilled workers. The demand for skills is endogenous and an...

We study the effect of 'globalization' on wage inequality. Our 'global' economy resembles Rosen's (1981) 'Superstars' economy, where a) innovations in production and communication technologies enable suppliers to reach a larger mass of consumers and to improve the (perceived) quality of their...

We compare the trade and labour approaches to wage inequality. We first look at the theoretical differences, stressing the different roles ascribed to sector and factor bias, labour supply and the theory of technical change in trade models with endogenous prices. We then briefly review some of...

This paper analyzes the contribution of the minimum wage to the well documented rise in earnings inequality in Mexico between the late 1980s and the early 2000s. We find that a substantial part of the growth in inequality, and essentially all the growth in inequality in the bottom end, is due to...

What demand-side and institutional factors raised the skilled wage premium over the 1980s in UK manufacturing? Using a panel of 80 industries for 1980–89 we find that: (i) the average skill premium rose by around 13 percentage points; (ii) computer introduction explains around 50% of this rise;...

In this article we characterize the evolution of inequality in hourly wages, hours of work, labor earnings, household disposable income and household consumption for Spain between 1985 and 2000. We look at both the Encuesta Continua de Presupuestos Familiares and the European Household Community...

We use two UK panel data sets to investigate skill-upgrading in the United Kingdom and how it has been affected by computerization. Census data reveals that most aggregate skill-upgrading is explained by within-firm rises in skill composition. Such upgrading is significantly related to...

Economists have long viewed recessions as contributing to increasing inequality. This conclusion is largely based on data from a period in which inequality was increasing over time, however. This Paper examines the connection between long-run trends and cyclical variation in earnings inequality....