TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gosling,Amanda
AU  - Lemieux,Thomas
TI  - Labour Market Reforms and Changes in Wage Inequality in the United Kingdom and the United States
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8413
PY  - 2001
Y2  - August 2001
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8413
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8413.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Amanda Gosling

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
M1  - published as Amanda Gosling, Thomas Lemieux. "Labor Market Reforms and Changes in Wage Inequality in the United Kingdom and the United States," in David Card, Richard Blundell and Richard B. Freeman, editors, "Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980-2000" University of Chicago Press (2004)

AB  - This paper compares trends in male and female hourly wage inequality in the United Kingdom and the United States between 1979 and 1998. Our main finding is that the extent and pattern of wage inequality became increasingly similar in the two countries during this period. We attribute this convergence to 'U.S. style' reforms in the U.K. labour market. In particular, we argue that the much steeper decline in unionisation in the United Kingdom explains why inequality increased faster than in the United States. For women, we conclude that the fall and subsequent recovery in the real value of the U.S. minimum wage explains why wage inequality increased faster in the United States than in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, while the opposite happened during the 1990s. Interestingly, the introduction of the National Minimum Wage in the U.K. in 1999 also contributed to the convergence in labour market institutions and wage inequality between the two countries.
ER  -