Doctoral Dissertation Research: Market concentration, skill segregation, and rising wage inequality

博士论文研究：市场集中、技能隔离和工资不平等加剧

• 批准号: 1702914
• 负责人: Bruce Western
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1702914&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Market; concentration

Pay differences between a company's managers and its workers are striking, and much studied, but the rise in inequality over the last 40 years has come mostly from growing differences between people working at different employers, not between those working together. This fact is hard to explain for theories that explain inequality with differences in workers' education levels: even similarly-educated workers get paid differently depending on which companies they end up working at. This project instead aims to explain rising inequality by measuring changes in the intensity of competition between rival companies and changes in the balance of power between buyer and supplier companies. By studying the sources of pay differences between workplaces, this project points to a novel set of employer-targeted policies to address rising wage inequality. The research proposed here could help assess how antitrust enforcement, competition policy and product market regulation affect the wage structure. Advocates and policy makers alike have neglected these indirect policy determinants of inequality.To clarify the sources of rising between-firm inequality, this project brings insights from economic sociology to the analysis of inequality. It builds on and reformulates the structuralist sociology of wages to ask how hierarchical relations between firms can affect wage inequality. Changes in market power are expected to affect inequality by shifting the allocation of good jobs and high wages across different employers. Specifically, the project uses establishment-level and linked employer-employee data to test several contributing sources of changing relations between firms. First, it considers whether shifting product market power has benefited some firms and workers and undermined others. Second, it asks how the reliance of supplier firms on powerful corporate buyers affects suppliers? workers? wages. Finally, it tests whether trends in educational and occupational segregation across workplaces contribute to rising inequality. More broadly, it asks about the consequences of the structured nature of product markets for the distribution of wages: if businesses operate in settings that depart from the assumptions of perfect markets, what are the consequences for their workers? wages?

公司管理人员和员工之间的薪酬差异是惊人的，而且研究得很多，但过去40年来不平等的加剧主要是由于在不同雇主工作的人之间的差异越来越大，而不是在一起工作的人之间。 这一事实很难用工人受教育程度差异来解释不平等的理论来解释：即使是受教育程度相似的工人，也会根据他们最终在哪些公司工作而获得不同的报酬。 相反，该项目旨在通过衡量竞争对手之间竞争强度的变化以及买方和供应商之间力量平衡的变化来解释不平等的加剧。 通过研究工作场所之间薪酬差异的来源，该项目指出了一套针对雇主的新政策，以解决日益加剧的工资不平等问题。 这里提出的研究可以帮助评估反垄断执法，竞争政策和产品市场监管如何影响工资结构。 无论是倡导者还是政策制定者都忽视了这些间接的不平等政策决定因素。为了弄清企业间不平等加剧的根源，本研究将经济社会学的观点引入不平等分析。 它建立在结构主义工资社会学的基础上，并重新阐述了结构主义工资社会学，以探讨企业之间的等级关系如何影响工资不平等。 市场力量的变化预计会影响不平等，因为它会改变好工作和高工资在不同雇主之间的分配。 具体而言，该项目使用建立一级和关联的雇主-雇员数据来测试公司之间的关系变化的几个贡献源。 首先，它考虑了产品市场力量的转移是否使一些公司和工人受益，而损害了其他公司和工人。 第二，它问供应商公司对强大的公司买家的依赖如何影响供应商？工人？工资 最后，它测试了工作场所的教育和职业隔离趋势是否导致不平等加剧。 更广泛地说，它询问了产品市场的结构性对工资分配的影响：如果企业在偏离完美市场假设的环境中运营，对其工人的影响是什么？工资？

项目成果

Wage Stagnation and Buyer Power: How Buyer-Supplier Relations Affect U.S. Workers’ Wages, 1978 to 2014

工资停滞和买方力量：买方与供应商关系如何影响美国工人工资，1978 年至 2014 年

• DOI: 10.1177/0003122418762441
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: American Sociological Review
• 影响因子: 9.1
• 作者: Wilmers, Nathan