We study the effect of bank merger deregulation on market structure and wages in the banking industry. We show that state deregulation of bank mergers and acquisitions increased the market share of large, multi-state banks and lowered wages for bank workers by up to 8 percentage points, with...

In his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Adam Smith (1776) considered the phenomenon of division of labor so enormously significant for the creation of a nation’s wealth that he devoted the first three chapters of his book to an investigation of this process. This is...

The authors review from a critical perspective the ‘patrimonial capitalism’ approach, as well as its analysis of wage-labor transformations in developed economies during the last thirty years. For this purpose, they take the economies of France and the United States as study cases. According...

In this lecture I first give an explanation for invidious preferences based on the (evolutionary) competition for resources. Then I show that these preferences have wide ranging and empirically relevant effects on labor markets, such as: workplace skill segregation, gradual promotions, wage...

Using data from the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances and the U.S. Census Bureau, along with data and research from other sources, this paper presents seven economic facts about the racial wealth gap in the U.S. We present data on racial disparities in income, employment, homeownership,...

This paper is concerned with the question of whether top income earners are permanently there or only temporarily receive the highest incomes. How much mobility is there at the top of the income distribution, and how has mobility changed over time? The paper makes both a methodological and an...

This testimony makes three main points. First, income volatility, especially when it involves income declines, imposes significant hardships on American families. It heightens stress about finances and may increase household living expenses. These hardships are most pronounced for middle-and...

Using data from the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances and the U.S. Census Bureau, along with data and research from other sources, this paper presents seven economic facts about the racial wealth gap in the U.S. We present data on racial disparities in income, employment, homeownership,...

This paper incorporates search and matching frictions in the labor market into a New Keynesian model. In contrast to the literature, the labor market activity takes place in the (Calvo-staggered) price-setting sector. Matching frictions lead price-setting firms to negotiate wage rates with their...