Labor unions are an important economic and political force in South Africa. Inequality in wage rates is among the largest in the world in South Africa, with African and white workers receiving wages that differ by a factor of five. The complex role of unions in closing and creating this wage gap...

This paper uncovers ongoing trends in idiosyncratic earnings volatility across generations by decomposing residual earnings auto-covariances into a permanent and a transitory component. We employ data on complete earnings life cycles for prime age men born 1935 through 1974 that covers earnings...