This paper documents the pervasiveness of job polarization in 16 Western European countries over the period 1993-2010. It then develops and estimates a framework to explain job polarization using routine-biased technological change and offshoring. This model can explain much of both total job...

This paper investigates the impact on the wage distribution of the introduction, in April 1999, of the National Minimum Wage in the UK. Because of the structure of UK earnings statistics, it is not straightforward to investigate this and a number of different methods for adjusting the published...

‘Monopsony and Labour Demand’ might strike many as a contradiction in terms as monopsony is often thought to mean an outcome on the labour supply and not the labour demand curve. This paper argues that, despite initial appearances to the contrary, there is no inevitable contradiction between...

The phenomenon of 'job polarisation' is increasing inequality as the labour market splits into high- and low-wage work. According to Alan Manning, who coined the term a decade ago, we cannot ignore job polarisation - but with sensible policies, we can manage it. Aiming for greater equality in...

This paper shows, using data from both the US and the UK, that average plant size is larger in denser markets. However, many popular theories of agglomeration spillovers, cost advantages and improved match quality predict that establishments should be smaller in cities. The paper proposes a...

This paper argues that skill-biased technical change has some deficiencies as a hypothesis about the impact of technology on the labor market and that a more nuanced view recently proposed by Autor, Levy and Murnane (2003) is a more accurate description. The difference between the two hypotheses...

This paper shows, using data from both the US and the UK, that average plant size is larger in denser markets. However, many popular theories of agglomeration – spillovers, cost advantages and improved match quality – predict that establishments should be smaller in cities. The paper...

There is little doubt that technology has had the most profound effect on altering the tasks that we humans do in our jobs. Economists have long speculated on how technical change affects both the absolute demand for labour as a whole and the relative demands for different types of labour. In...

This paper shows, using data from both the US and the UK, that average plant size is larger in denser markets. However, many popular theories of agglomeration spillovers, cost advantages and improved match quality predict that establishments should be smaller in cities. The paper proposes a...

This paper shows, using data from both the US and the UK, that average plant size is larger in denser markets. However, many popular theories of agglomeration spillovers, cost advantages and improved match quality predict that establishments should be smaller in cities. The paper proposes a...