International Differences in Male Wage Inequality: Institutions Versus Market Forces
Author(s)
Blau, Francine; Kahn, Lawrence M.
Abstract
Many economists have written about the recent trend toward increased wage inequality, which has occured in most industrialized countries. Equally important, however, are the large and persistent international differences in the level of inequality. In particular, the distribution of wages is much less equal in the United States than in western Europe. This article presents a detailed comparative analysis of the inequality in the distribution of male wages in the U.S. and nine other developed countries in the 1980s. It finds that the difference between the U.S. and other countries is located almost entirely in the lower half of the wage distribution, and argues that institutional rather than market forces offer the most persuasive explanation of these patterns.
