TY  - JOUR
AU  - Levy,Frank
AU  - Temin,Peter
TI  - Inequality and Institutions in 20th Century America
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13106
PY  - 2007
Y2  - May 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13106
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13106.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Frank Levy
c/o Harriette Crawford
Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning
Building 9-517
MIT
Cambridge, MA 02139
E-Mail: flevy@mit.edu

Peter Temin
Department of Economics
MIT, Room E52-271A
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-3126
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: ptemin@mit.edu
AB  - We provide a comprehensive view of widening income inequality in the United States contrasting conditions since 1980 with those in earlier postwar years. We argue that the income distribution in each period was strongly shaped by a set of economic institutions.  The early postwar years were dominated by unions, a negotiating framework set in the Treaty of Detroit, progressive taxes, and a high minimum wage -- all parts of a general government effort to broadly distribute the gains from growth. More recent years have been characterized by reversals in all these dimensions in an institutional pattern known as the Washington Consensus.  Other explanations for income disparities including skill-biased technical change and international trade are seen as factors operating within this broader institutional story.
ER  -