We use wage data from the Current Population Survey Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS MORG) to study the effect of state and federal minimum wage policies on gender, race, and ethnic inequality throughout the wage distribution, focusing on lower-tail inequality between men and women, Blacks...

We analyze a 1960-96 panel of OECD countries to explain why the US moved from relatively high to relatively low unemployment over the last three decades. We find that while macroeconomic and demographic shocks and changing labor market institutions explain a modest portion of this change, the...

Using microdata from the 1994-6 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), we examine the role of cognitive skills in explaining higher wage inequality in the US. We find that while the greater dispersion of cognitive test scores in the US plays a part in explaining higher US wage inequality,...

This study uses comparable data on 470 detailed occupations from the 1970, 1980 and 1990 Censuses to analyze trends in occupational segregation in the United States in the 1980s and compare them in detail to the 1970s experience of declining segregation. We find that the trend towards reduced...

This paper examines gender differences in labor market outcomes for hard-to-employ youth in the US and West Germany during the 1984-91 period. We find that young, less educated American men and especially women are far less likely to be employed than their German counterparts. Moreover, less...

The U.S labor market experienced two dramatic developments over the past twenty years: a falling male-female pay gap and a rising level of wage inequality. This paper uses Michigan Panel Study on Income Dynamics (PSID) data for 1975 and 1987 and Current Population Survey (CPS) data for 1971 and...