EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Wage controversies: real wage stagnation, inequality and labour market institutions

Stephen Machin

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Weak real wage growth, low wage work and higher wage inequality than the past are features of contemporary labour markets the world over. Longstanding wage controversies in economics are of relevance to them. This paper studies what has happened to wages in the British labour market over the past sixty years, connecting the observed trends to some of these wage controversies. The focus is on the role of labour market institutions for wage inequality, real wage stagnation and shifting wage norms. Given that UK real wages have stagnated for the longest duration of the past two centuries, and inequality remains high, the paper concludes with discussion of where inclusive real wage growth can come from to boost workers’ living standards as it did in the past.

Keywords: wage controversies; real wages; labour market institutions; employer and worker power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J38 J42 J51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2024-03-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in LSE Public Policy Review, 1, March, 2024, 3(2). ISSN: 2633-4046

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/122220/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:122220

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:122220