Instead of merely setting a lower bound on the wages of formal sector workers, minimum wages serve as a norm for wage setting more generally throughout the Mexican economy. Our results suggest that wages are commonly set at multiples of the minimum wage, and that changes in minimum wages...

This paper explores possible causal determinants of changing wage and salary informality over the period 2000–2010 in Brazil. We utilize demographic census and other institutional data sources from the opening and closing years of the decade, informality regressions in both years that exploit...

Manufacturing injury rates followed a U-shaped pattern over the 1946-70 period, falling for roughly the first fifteen years after World War II and then rising by an almost equal amount in the following decade. Rapid economic growth, changing demographics of the manufacturing labor force, and...

Instead of merely setting a lower bound on the wages of formal sector workers, minimum wages serve as a norm for wage setting more generally throughout the Mexican economy. Our results suggest that wages are commonly set at multiples of the minimum wage, and that changes in minimum wages...

This paper utilizes household and establishment survey data from Mexico to explore the impact of unions on wages, wage inequality, fringe benefits, turnover, job training, productivity, and profits. Mexican unions are statistically significantly associated with these outcome measures for workers...

This is a short introduction to the three papers that comprise the symposium.

This paper strengthens the analysis of "endogenous contradictions" found in social structures of accumulation (SSA) theory. It offers a precise definition of the term, spells out why it is that highly stratified societies are prone to contradictions of this sort, and discusses a mechanism by...

Manufacturing injury rates followed a U-shaped pattern over the 1946–70 period, falling for roughly the first fifteen years after World War II and then rising by an almost equal amount in the following decade. Rapid economic growth, changing demographics of the manufacturing labor force,...

This paper offers empirical evidence on the impact of trade unions on wage inequality in Mexico. The results indicate that unions were a strongly equalizing force affecting the dispersion of wages in 1984, but were only half as effective at reducing wage inequality in 1996. Not only did the...