IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/raaexx/v18y2011i2p201-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Globalization and Wage Stagnation: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth Weiher
  • Hamid Beladi

Abstract

U.S. real-wages stagnation since 1973 in spite of rising labor productivity is an unprecedented phenomenon. This paper presents the history of the relationship between real wages and productivity and based upon long-run evidence rejects two possible explanations, measurement issues and skill-biased technical change. Instead it focuses on the coincidence of the development of productivity/wage wedge and the conversion of the U.S. economy to an open one in the 1970s. It suggests that in an open economy, technical improvements and foreign competition may collaborate to generate a fall in real earnings, where they would not in a closed economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth Weiher & Hamid Beladi, 2011. "Globalization and Wage Stagnation: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives," Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 201-211.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:raaexx:v:18:y:2011:i:2:p:201-211
    DOI: 10.1080/16081625.2011.9720881
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/16081625.2011.9720881
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/16081625.2011.9720881?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clarence D. Long, 1960. "Introduction to "Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890"," NBER Chapters, in: Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890, pages 1-12, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ms. Anastasia Guscina, 2006. "Effects of Globalization on Labor’s Share in National Income," IMF Working Papers 2006/294, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Clarence D. Long, 1960. "Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number long60-1, June.
    4. Paul Gomme & Peter Rupert, 2004. "Measuring labors share of income," Policy Discussion Papers, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Nov.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Semat Joshua & Linn Suzanna & Lowery David & Berry William D., 2015. "The cost growth of government revisited," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 723-737, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Darrell J. Glaser & Ahmed S. Rahman, 2017. "Development and Retention of Human Capital in Large Bureaucracies," Departmental Working Papers 60, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    2. Glaser, Darrell & Rahman, Ahmed, 2015. "Human Capital on the High Seas - Job Mobility and Returns to Technical Skill During Industrialization," MPRA Paper 68351, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Hugh Rockoff, 2019. "On the Controversies behind the Origins of the Federal Economic Statistics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 147-164, Winter.
    4. Binder, Carola Conces, 2016. "Estimation of historical inflation expectations," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-31.
    5. Trevon D. Logan, 2018. "Do Black Politicians Matter?," NBER Working Papers 24190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dupraz, Yannick & Ferrara, Andreas, 2021. "Fatherless: The Long-Term Effects of Losing a Father in the U.S. Civil War," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 538, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    7. Daniel Kaufmann, 2020. "Is deflation costly after all? The perils of erroneous historical classifications," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(5), pages 614-628, August.
    8. Charles W. Calomiris & Christopher Hanes, 1994. "Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History," NBER Working Papers 4935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Hur, Joonyoung, 2021. "Labor income share and economic fluctuations: A sign-restricted VAR approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    10. Jon D. Wisman, 2014. "The Financial Crisis of 1929 Reexamined: The Role of Soaring Inequality," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 372-391, July.
    11. Jon D. Wisman & Barton Baker, 2011. "Increasing Inequality and the Financial Crises of 1929 and 2008," Working Papers 2011-01 JEL classificatio, American University, Department of Economics.
    12. Özlem Onaran, 2008. "The Effects of Globalization on Wages, Employment, and Wage Share in Austria," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 34(3), pages 337-360.
    13. Ezra Oberfield & Devesh Raval, 2021. "Micro Data and Macro Technology," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(2), pages 703-732, March.
    14. George Kapetanios & Stephen Millard & Katerina Petrova & Simon Price, 2018. "Time varying cointegration and the UK great ratios," CAMA Working Papers 2018-53, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/30nstiku669glbr66l6n7mc2oq is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Alejandro Cunat & Szabolcs Deak & Marco Maffezzoli, 2022. "Tax Cuts in Open Economies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 83-108, July.
    17. Marta Guerriero, 2019. "The Labor Share of Income Around the World: Evidence from a Panel Dataset," ADB Institute Series on Development Economics, in: Gary Fields & Saumik Paul (ed.), Labor Income Share in Asia, chapter 0, pages 39-79, Springer.
    18. Petra Duenhaupt, 2011. "The Impact of Financialization on Income Distribution in the USA and Germany: A Proposal for a New Adjusted Wage Share," IMK Working Paper 7-2011, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    19. Robert A. Margo, 2000. "The History of Wage Inequality in America, 1920 to 1970," Macroeconomics 0004035, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Card, David & Olson, Craig A, 1995. "Bargaining Power, Strike Durations, and Wage Outcomes: An Analysis of Strikes in the 1880s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(1), pages 32-61, January.
    21. Jon D. Wisman & Matthew E. Davis, 2013. "Degraded Work, Declining Community, Rising Inequality, and the Transformation of the Protestant Ethic in America: 1870–1930," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(5), pages 1075-1105, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:raaexx:v:18:y:2011:i:2:p:201-211. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/raae20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.