STATE-LEVEL BASIC WAGES IN AUSTRALIA DURING THE DEPRESSION, 1929-35: INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICS OVER MARKETS

Peter Sheldon

Australian Economic History Review, 2007, vol. 47, issue 3, pages 249-277

Abstract: State wage-fixation tribunals developed quite particular patterns of basic wage fixation during the Depression. They declined to follow the Commonwealth Court's 10 per cent wage cut, thereby confining its effect to about half the workforce and creating distinctly different State and Commonwealth basic wage patterns in each capital city. Further, tribunals' uneven patterns of basic wage adjustment to deflation meant that in some states, the real State basic wage increased. Patterns of state institutional behaviour and state politics therefore help explain the stickiness of real average wage levels during the Depression. Copyright 2007 The Author; Journal compilation Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2007.

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