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ABSTRACTThis paper specifies an unemployment rate model with relatively long lags on the manufacturing real wage and the level of real GNP as the independent variables. Estimates of the model for 12 MSAs in Pennsylvania over the period from 1975:2 to 1986:4 generally indicate a fairly strong positive unemployment response to lagged real wages. This is consistent with theoretical models of the labor market that hypothesize strong real wage effects during periods of aggregate supply shocks. The unique characteristics of the time period under study and the disaggregation to local labor markets might account for the fact that, in contrast to many previous empirical studies, we are able to uncover evidence of a positive real wage‐unemployment relationship in U.S. time series data.

"Inequality of wages among workers and inequality of income and wealth among families and households has been rising steadily for the past half-century in the United States and other developed economies. However, the United States stands out for having the most unequal wage and income distributions to begin with and for experiencing the fastest rise in inequality over the following decades. While this has been a long-developing situation and the subject of academic interest for some time, it is only in the last decade or so that inequality has attracted considerable public attention and become a political issue. Inequality has also become a subject of renewed interest among economists, with a growing number of scholars engaged in the development of new databases and the analysis of the causes and effects of increased inequality. This book provides an overview of the economic analysis of wage, income and wealth inequality in the United States, with a focus on this recent research. It provides the reader with an understanding of the complex causes of rising inequality, the serious consequences that make rising inequality an issue for public policy, and the potential policy actions that might be taken to slow or reverse rising inequality. The author presents an economic and statistical analysis in clear non-technical language to allow the general reader or student in an undergraduate course to learn the insights that economists have gained into the issue of inequality in advanced economies. The book contends that rising wage inequality among workers and income and wealth inequality among families reflects the complex interaction of profound changes in the US economy over the last half-century. These are not limited to economic changes like new technology, increased globalization, changes in the internal structure of firms, and the rise of new growth sectors in tech, finance, and health care. Of additional critical importance are changes in public opinion and political platforms and policies that replaced the New Deal view of the economic role of government with a pro-business, free-market philosophy that has changed labor market policy in a direction promoting increased inequality. This major change in the environment raises important questions about the efficacy of policy proposals. An additionally intriguing issue is the ultimate impact of the financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic on perceptions of and support for government policies designed to reverse the seemingly inexorable trend toward greater inequality. This book traces the evolution of inequality over time through key concept illustrations and language that is easy enough to understand, even for the general reader"--

This analysis uses establishment-level data on job creation and destruction to examine the unemployment rate responses of black, Hispanic and white workers to shifts in demand across firms and industries during the period 1980-84. Black unemployment rates are significantly more responsive to differences in aggregate demand growth and wage flexibility than are white and Hispanic unemployment rates, and they are also more severely impacted by structural changes in labor demand than are white and Hispanic unemployment rates. Additional research using the measures and focus of the present analysis that cover other time periods can assist in developing a clearer picture of the contemporary dynamics of urban labor markets and can provide guidance for public policy.