TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lemieux,Thomas
TI  - The Changing Nature of Wage Inequality
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13523
PY  - 2007
Y2  - October 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13523
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13523.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Thomas Lemieux
Department of Economics
University of British Columbia
#997-1873 East Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
CANADA
Tel: 604/822-2092
Fax: 604/822-5915
E-Mail: thomas.lemieux@ubc.ca
AB  - The paper reviews recent developments in the literature on wage inequality, with a particular focus on why inequality growth has been particularly concentrated in the top end of the wage distribution over the last 15 years.  Several possible institutional and demand-side explanations are discussed for the secular growth in wage inequality in the United States and other advanced industrialized countries. The paper concludes that three promising explanations for the growth in top-end wage inequality are de-unionization, the increased prevalence of pay for performance, and changes in the relative demand for the types of tasks performed by workers in high-paying occupations.
ER  -