PALESTRANTE:
Adam Aboobaker
FILIAÇÃO INSTITUCIONAL: Global Development Institute - University of Manchester; University of the Witwatersrand; Paris School of Economics.

ABSTRACT: Expansionary fiscal policy and a corresponding tightening in labour markets has been seen as a corrective to decades of macro-policy that may have contributed to rising wage inequality. Reviewing the evidence for and against this perspective, we use US Current Population Survey (CPS) data to construct measures of wage inequality and Bureau of Labour Statistics measures of labour market conditions from which we estimate wage-Phillips curves that control for individual characteristics, along with time and state fixed effects. Our empirical findings accord with studies that find labour market conditions an important determinant of nominal wage dynamics. However, our findings point in a direction emphasising that the dramatic compression of wage inequality during the recent pandemic and its aftermath were plausibly driven by special circumstances, including power-biased policy intervention. We do not find evidence in line with a generalised cyclical movement in wage inequality. Moreover, we caution against interpretations that extend the cyclical relationship between labour market tightness and wage inequality to the long run.

DATA: 17/04/2025
HORA: 13h30
SALA: 203