This paper uses state fixed effect models and a Synthetic Control design with Current Population Survey (CPS) data to identify the impact of state Right-to-Work (RTW) laws on wages, benefits, and union status among private and public sector workers. Despite a modest effect of RTW laws on wages,...

We examine the changing relationship between unionization and wage inequality in Canada and the United States. Our study is motivated by profound recent changes in the composition of the unionized workforce. Historically, union jobs were concentrated among low-skilled men in private sector...

This paper is concerned with the determinants and consequences of immigrant/linguistic concentrations (enclaves). The reasons for the formation of these concentrations are discussed. Hypotheses are developed regarding ?ethnic goods? and the effect of concentrations on the immigrant?s language...

The last decades have witnessed a revolution in manufacturing production characterized by increasing technology adoption and a strong expansion of international trade. Simultaneously, the income distribution has exhibited both polarization and concentration among the richest. Combining datasets...

This paper decomposes the rise in cross-sectional earnings inequality in Sweden between 1990 and 2002 into changes in market prices of observable characteristics, changes in the composition of the labor force across demographic groups and industries, and changes in unobservables, and compares...

Swedish census data and tax records reveal an astonishing wage compression; the Swedish skill premium fell by more than 30 percent between 1970 and 1990 while the U.S. skill premium, after an initial decline in the 1970s, rose by 8 - 10 percent. Since then both skill premia have increased by...

One consequence of demographic change is substantial shifts in the age distribution of the working age population. As the baby boom generation ages, the usual historical pattern of there being a high ratio of younger workers relative to older workers is increasingly being replaced by a pattern...

The level of violence in the National Hockey League (NHL) reached its highest point in 1987 and has reduced somewhat since then, although to levels much larger than before the first team expansions in 1967. Using publicly available information from several databases 1996-2007, the incentives for...

This paper asks the following important question: what was the effect of surging immigration on average and individual wages of U.S.-born workers during the period 1990-2004? Building on section VII of Borjas (2003) we emphasize the need for a general equilibrium approach to analyze this...