Comparing past and present wage inequality in two globalisation periods

Concha Betr�n and Maria A. Pons

Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2013, vol. 61, issue 2, 140-166

Abstract: This paper compares past and present globalisation with an aim to highlighting the different factors that drove wage inequality then and those which are doing so now. We have constructed a ratio of wage inequality for 15 countries in the first period of globalisation (1870-1913) and the subsequent period of deglobalisation (1914-1930) and then compare this pattern to wage inequality in the 1980s and 1990s. We propose that the difference in wage inequality trends for the two globalisation periods is due to migration and institutional factors (education and labour market institutions). These factors offset the increase in wage inequality produced by globalisation and technological change in the past, but do not appear to be acting in the present.

Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1080/03585522.2013.784212

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