Inequality and Union Membership: The Influence of Relative Earnings and Inequality Attitudes

Using surveys from the International Social Survey Programme covering the period 1985–2002 for seven European countries (West and East Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain), we examine the effect of relative earnings on union membership and show that union density is higher among workers in the intermediate earnings group than among low or high earners. Next, we examine the association of inequality attitudes with union membership and demonstrate that union membership is not only motivated by instrumental considerations related to relative earnings, but also by normative concerns about inequality. We interpret our findings suggesting that rising earnings inequality is in itself a source of union decline.     

灰不等式的性质

本文在文献[1]的基础上,研究了灰不等式的性质。     

关于Chebyshev不等式的一点注记

本文给出了 Chebyshev 不等式的一种改进形式,从而得到一种更简便的估计。并就各种情况给出了严格的证明。     

Unionization,Inequality and Redistribution

This article explores the implications of the OECD‐wide decline of union density for earnings inequality and income redistribution by looking at aggregate (country‐level) data. Over the period 1975–95, countries that experienced relatively large declines in union density also experienced relatively large increases in earnings inequality. In addition, governments apparently became less willing to engage in ‘compensatory redistribution’ in these countries. Since the early 1990s, however, union decline has become less closely associated with rising earnings inequality and redistributive policy changes. I argue that the declining relevance of unionization has to do with changes in the position of union members in the income distribution. In most OECD countries, the average union member has become relatively better off as union density has declined and union members have probably become less supportive of wage solidarity and redistributive government policies.     

Training and the Growth of Wage Inequality

Shifts in the incidence of training over the 1980s favored more-educated, more-experienced workers. These shifts, coupled with increases in returns to skill, suggest that training may have contributed to the growth of between-group wage inequality in this period. However, because 1) the shifts in training were too small, and 2) the returns to training did not rise, only small fractions of the increases in returns to schooling and experience over this period can be explained by changes in the distribution of or returns to training.     

Earnings Inequality and Unions in Canada

This paper reports research examining differences in the earnings distributions of unionized and non–unionized workers and the impact of union status on the likelihood of a worker being in each region of the earnings distribution. Average earnings of unionized workers are shown to be higher than those of non–union workers in the first four quintiles, but lower than average earnings of non–unionized workers in the top quintile. Union effects are greatest among workers situated in the lower and middle regions of the distribution, and benefit workers who are typically disadvantaged in the labour market.     

Income Inequality: An Inter-Industry Analysis

This paper offers new evidence that inter-industry inequality has increased since the early seventies. An examination of de industrialization, segmented labor market, and international competition explanations of this increase shows that the growth of inequality is accounted for mainly by growing wage differentials among industries, notably between primacy and secondary sectors. Employment shifts out of middle-wage industries and employment and wage effects of international trade do not explain the inequality increase.     

我国区域收入差距变化新趋势及原因分析

1985～2013年我国的区域收入差距先逐渐扩大2006年后开始缩小。分解分析发现,东部地区内部的省际差异对全国的地区差异贡献份额很大但2005年之后开始缩小,西部地区内部省际差异2002年之后出现了明显扩大的趋势,四大区域之间的差异对全国地区差异的贡献份额最大但2002年后轻微下降。除了发展战略、要素投入等各种传统因素外,产业集聚效应也是导致区域收入差距的重要原因。     

Doubts Regarding the Human Capital Theory of Racial Inequality

Using wage data developed by Smith (1984), this paper compares human capital and institutional explanations of trends in the racial wage gap since 1890. While a regression including daily schooling variables is consistent with the human capital theory, so is an institutional model which omits schooling variables but adds the influences of isolation in the rural South, discriminatory hiring and promotion practices, unemployment, and government policy. Including schooling and institutional variables together casts doubt on the relative importance of schooling compared to labor market demands and political variables.     

城镇化、收入分配与进口贸易

城镇化是中国经济持续发展的重要战略平台,影响着个人收入水平的变动及收入分配差距的变化,从而对进口贸易规模及结构产生影响。本文通过VAR模型的构建、Granger因果检验和脉冲图,对城镇化发展影响个人收入分配差距、个人收入分配差距影响中国进口贸易进行分析。研究结果表明：城镇化发展对个人收入分配差距具有长期、相互的影响作用,个人收入分配差距变化对进口贸易增长具有正态效应。应采取相应措施,通过个人收入分配媒介,发挥城镇化对进口贸易的刺激效能。     

Decentralization of Collective Agreements and Rising Wage Inequality in Israel

This paper presents a systematic analysis of the decentralization of the Israeli system of collective bargaining and its contribution to the rise in earnings inequality. We quantitatively analyze all collective agreements that were signed between 1957 and 2003, and present the scale, scope, and timing of five dimensions of decentralization. The findings suggest that decentralization started in the mid‐1970s when national agreements were less likely to be extended to nonunion employees; it was intensified in 1975–1980 when nationwide industrial agreements were supplanted by occupational and local agreements. Decentralization became fully consolidated by 1987 when peak‐level agreements covering the entire private sector were no longer signed. We then present evidence (including time‐series analyses that control for union density and macroeconomic indicators) that the process of decentralization, especially the decline in the use of extension orders and the proliferation of local agreements, explains a significant part of the sharp rise in earnings inequality in Israel during 1970–2003.     

Collective Bargaining and the Evolution of Wage Inequality in Italy

Italian male wage inequality has increased at a relatively fast pace from the mid‐1980s until the early 2000s, while it has been persistently flat since then. We analyse this trend, focusing on the period of most rapid growth in pay dispersion. By accounting for worker and firm fixed effects, it is shown that workers' heterogeneity has been a major determinant of increased wage inequalities, while variability in firm wage policies has declined over time. We also show that the growth in pay dispersion has entirely occurred between livelli di inquadramento, that is, job titles defined by national industry‐wide collective bargaining institutions, for which specific minimum wages apply. We conclude that the underlying market forces determining wage inequality have been largely channelled into the tight tracks set by the centralized system of industrial relations.     

Firm Responses to Income Inequality and the Cost of Time

The full cost of shopping includes the cost of the shopper's time.When that cost increases, stores have incentives to respond in waysthat economize on shopper time. One response is to substitute in-storelabor for shopper time. Pooled cross-sectional tests using data fromsuburban and city food stores show that various labor intensitymeasures are higher where the opportunity cost of shopper time ishigher. We distinguish between income and cost of time effects byshowing that store labor intensity depends on the composition ofincome between male and female members of the family, and notonly on the level of family income. We obtain similar results for twoother ways that food stores can economize on shopper time – locatingcloser to the customer and offering more check out stations withina store. We also use a unique shopping time survey to showthat shoppers from higher income households make fewer visitsto food stores, spend less time per visit in the check out line andare more likely to shop at stores with longer hours.     

Institutional Solutions to Precariousness and Inequality in Labour Markets

It has become widely assumed that the standard employment relationship (SER) is in irreversible decline in industrialized societies. However, non‐standard and precarious work relationships often complement the SER via labour market transitions, and are not displacing it as the focal point of labour market regulation. The co‐ordination and risk management functions of the SER continue to be relevant in market economies, and the SER is adjusting to new conditions. The SER has a complex and evolving relationship to gender and to social stratification. In the European context where the SER originated and achieved its clearest legal expression, institutional solutions to precariousness and inequality are being developed, the most innovative of which avoid simple deregulation in favour of integrated policy responses involving a range of complementary regulatory mechanisms.     

Decomposing the Sources of Earnings Inequality: Assessing the Role of Reallocation

This study exploits longitudinal employer–employee matched data from the U.S. Census Bureau to investigate the contribution of worker and firm reallocation to changes in earnings inequality within and across industries between 1992 and 2003. We find that factors that cannot be measured using standard cross‐sectional data, including the entry and exit of firms and the sorting of workers across firms, are important sources of changes in earnings distributions over time. Our results also suggest that the dynamics driving changes in earnings inequality are heterogeneous across industries.