Workplace Earnings Polarization: A Four-Country Panel Analysis

在美国和其他国家，不同工作场所的收入不平等现象迅速加剧。这些变化牵涉到企业市场力量、全球竞争和企业结构的转变。为了削减成本，一些主要品牌制造商一直在将供应商职能剥离给工资较低的公司。品牌公司还可能将大多数低技能劳动力转包出去，同时吸收与品牌相关的利润。其他机制包括特许经营商将其品牌出租给收入受限的特许经营商，以及全球大宗商品连锁店，高收入国家的大型零售商或制造商将日常生产委托给低工资地区。在一些国家，主导企业的权力、生产率、边界和全球范围的这种动态变化似乎受到了国家就业政策模式和股东业绩模式兴起的鼓励。这个项目将生成并测试组织层面上对公司内部和公司之间收入不平等加剧的解释。该项目的发现将对美国和国外的国家劳动力市场政策发展产生影响。该项目包括跨学科的合作者和抽样的四个国家的数据，因为这些国家对全球经济的敞口程度不同，当代机构就业保护的转变模式也不同。在这些国家中的每一个国家，该项目都将获取各国政府直接从雇主那里收集的多年相关的雇主-雇员行政数据。样本大小从一个国家20,000个工作场所和1,500,000名员工的低水平，到其他国家整个经济体的可比数据。该项目将利用30年特定国家的工作场所小组，模拟国家和工作场所一级的动态，包括工作场所之间和工作场所内部的收入不平等，作为产业结构调整、生产组织的变化以及机构变动和全球竞争压力的函数。将使用多变量误差修正面板模型来估计因果效应。该项目将对组织结构调整、基于技能的技术变革、组织不平等和比较政治经济学的社会学理论和文献做出贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

There has been a rapid rise in earnings inequalities across workplaces in the U.S. and in other countries. Shifts in firm market power, global competition and firm structure are implicated in these changes. To cut costs, some dominant brand manufacturers have been spinning off supplier functions to lower wage firms. Branded companies may also subcontract out most low skill labor while absorbing the profits associated with the brand. Other mechanisms include franchisors leasing their brand to revenue constrained franchisees and global commodity chains in which large retailers or manufacturers in high income countries delegate routine production to low wage locales. This package of dynamic shifts in the power, productivity, boundaries, and global scope of dominant firms appears to have been encouraged in some countries by national employment policy models and the rise of a shareholder performance model. This project will both generate and test organizational level explanations for rising within and between firm earnings inequalities. Project findings will have implications for national labor market policy development in the U.S. and abroad.The project includes interdisciplinary collaborators and data on four countries sampled because they have different levels of exposure to the global economy and different patterns of contemporary shifts in institutional employment protections. In each of these countries the project will access multiple years of linked employer-employee administrative data collected directly from employers by each nation's government. Sample sizes range from a low of 20,000 workplaces and 1,500,000 employees in one country to comparable data on the entire economies in other countries. Using thirty-year country-specific panels of workplaces, the project will model national and workplace level dynamics in both between and within workplace earnings inequalities as a function of industrial restructuring, changes in the organization of production, as well as the pressures of shifting institutions and global competition. Multivariate error correction panel models will be used to estimate causal effects. The project will contribute to the sociological theories and literatures on organizational restructuring, skill based technological change, organizational inequality and comparative political economy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.