The Organizational Production of National Earnings Inequalities

Where does rising earnings inequality come from? Our answer is workplaces and their associated pay practices. This presentation focuses on post-1990 national earnings inequality trends for the countries associated with the COIN project. Using linked employer-employee administrative data this presentation will present inequality trends for as many of the COIN countries as we have estimates for by the time of the conference. These will include at least Germany, Sweden, Slovenia, Korea, and Norway, but if all goes smoothly perhaps also France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Hungary.  The basic analyses will show how national earnings inequality comparisons in terms of both the levels and trends are produced by within and between workplace earnings inequalities. Implications for firm structure, high and low road development strategies, and institutional variation in levels and trends will be discussed.