Working Paper: NBER ID: w4664
Authors: Steven C. Allen
Abstract: This paper documents and analyzes changes in the wage structure across manufacturing industries over the last one hundred years. Inter-industry differentials in wages are highly stable for production workers, but autocorrelation patterns for nonproduction workers are considerably weaker. Industry wage patterns are very similar for production and nonproduction workers today, but this has been true only since 1958. Dispersion of wages across industries has shown varying trends over the last one hundred years, but has never in this century been higher than it is today. The variables that are most strongly correlated with wage growth are productivity growth, rising union density, rising capital intensity, and profit growth.
Keywords: wage structure; interindustry wage differentials; manufacturing industries; labor market
JEL Codes: J31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| productivity growth (O49) | wage growth (J31) |
| rising union density (J50) | wage growth (J31) |
| rising capital intensity (E22) | wage growth (J31) |
| profit growth (O49) | wage growth (J31) |
| interindustry wage structure stability (J31) | wage differentials (J31) |
| wage dispersion across industries (J31) | wage differentials (J31) |