Wage Inequality: A Comparative Perspective

23 March 2009

Professor Thomas Lemieux

Wage inequality has been increasing is most industrialised countries over the last two or three decades. There are, nonetheless, major differences across countries in terms of the timing and magnitude of the growth in inequality. A large number of explanations have been suggested for these observed changes, including technological progress and the computer revolution, labour market institutions and social norms, and changes in the relative supply of highly educated workers. The validity of these explanations will be assessed in light of the large differences in inequality growth across countries, and the stunning growth in the concentration of income at the top end of the distribution.

Broad Topics: Asia and the Pacific, Business and Economics

Sub-topics: Economics

Areas: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU College of Business and Economics

Thomas Lemieux has held positions at MIT and the Université de Montréal prior to joining the faculty at University of British Columbia in 1999 where he is a Professor of Economics and a Distinguished University Scholar.  Lemieux was a visiting professor at Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley.  He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a founding editor of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.  Lemieux has published over 40 articles and three books on a variety of topics in labour economics and applied econometrics. Most of his recent research has focused on the causes and consequences of the increase in income inequality in industrialised countries.

Presented by the ANU College of Business and Economics, the Crawford School of Economics and Government and the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.  This lecture was held as part of the ANU Trevor Swan Distinguished Lectures in Economics Series