The Changing Distribution of Earnings in OECD Countries
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The Changing Distribution of Earnings in OECD Countries by A B Atkinson
This book is about how much people earn and why the distribution of earnings has been changing over time. The gap between the top and bottom in the United States has widened significantly since 1980. Why has this happened? Is it due to new technologies? What is the role of globalisation? Are there historical precedents? The book begins with the "race" between technology and education, and shows that continuing technical progress does not necessarily imply a continuing rise in dispersion. It then examines the experience of 20 OECD countries over the twentieth century, material presented in the form of 20 country case studies. The book breaks new ground in assembling data on the distribution of individual earnings covering much of the twentieth century and drawing on a variety of under-exploited sources. The findings overturn a number of widely-held beliefs. It is not the earnings of the low paid that have been most affected by the recent changes; widening is largely due to what is happening at the top. The recent rise in earnings dispersion is not unprecedented, but should be seen as part of a longer-run history of successive compression and expansion of earnings differences.
This book demonstrates his continued mastery of the minutiae of longitudinal data sets..[..] if the source material were not reason enough to read this book...it's fresh challenge to conventional wisdom on the matter of earnings dispersion should be. * John Philpot, Chief economist, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) The Business Economist *
Sir Tony Atkinson has been Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, from 1994 to 2005. He was previously Tooke Professor at the London School of Economics, and founder Editor of the Journal of Public Economics. He has previously been President of the Econometric Society, of the European Economic Association, the Royal Economic Society, and the International Economic Association.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780199532438 |
| ISBN 10 | 0199532435 |
| Title | The Changing Distribution of Earnings in OECD Countries |
| Author | A B Atkinson |
| Series | The Rodolfo De Benedetti Lecture Series |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 2008-05-01 |
| Number of pages | 512 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |