Per-capita national income in the U.S. has risen substantially since the late 1970s. For most of this period, wage increases had been concentrated among high-skilled workers, while the real earnings of the median worker declined. Recently, there have been historically unusual macroeconomic trends in wage dynamics. The relationships between wages, inflation, and unemployment have diverged from the long-standing Phillips curve analysis. There is no consensus about the magnitude of the slowdown in real wage growth in past decades, the changing nature in the recent period, or the relative importance of the different explanations. However, whether real wages are growing and, if so, for whom, is fundamental to our understanding of social mobility and a range of other microeconomic and macroeconomic issues. These issues, which were important during a time of employment growth for most of the last decade, take on increased importance as the economy evolves in the post-COVID period.
To promote research on these issues, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), with the support of the Smith Richardson Foundation, is carrying out a research project on “Wage Dynamics in the 21st Century.” On September 12-13, 2024, the NBER will convene a research meeting in Cambridge, MA, organized by NBER researchers Erik Hurst (University of Chicago), Lisa B. Kahn (University of Rochester), and Ayşegül Şahin (University of Texas, Austin), that will bring together researchers in various subfields of economics, including labor, macro, and public economics as well as industrial organization and international trade, to better understand the recent evolution of wages.
Questions that might be addressed at this meeting include, but are not limited to:
• The evolving link between wage growth, inflation, and real activity
• Labor supply and potential changes in the work-leisure trade-off
• Changes in the provision of workplace amenities, and the value of such amenities to workers
• Labor demand changes driven by AI, automation, technological change, and trade
• The role of worker-firm sorting in explaining wage dynamics and inequality
• Trends in unionization and firm-level market power and the impact of these trends on wage growth
• The labor market effects of demographic shifts such as the aging population and changes to fertility, life-cycle career trajectories
• The impact of changing wage dynamics on inequality in earnings across workers in different skill, racial, ethnic, and gender groups
• Fringe benefits, cost-of-living and inflation adjustments and their impact on the measurement of labor compensation
The co-organizers welcome the submission of theoretical and empirical research papers on these and other related topics. Submissions from scholars who are early in their careers, with and without NBER affiliations, and who are members of groups that have been under-represented in economics are especially welcome.
To be considered for inclusion on the program, upload papers by midnight (EDT) on Wednesday, May 15, 2024.
Authors chosen to present papers at the conference will be notified by early June, 2024. The NBER will cover the cost for two authors per paper to attend the September 2024 conference in Cambridge, MA; all co-authors will be invited to attend. Authors will receive a modest honorarium for their participation in the project.
Questions about this conference may be addressed to confer@nber.org.