Loading Events
  • This event has passed.

Conference on the Causes of Wage Stagnation

August 26, 2016 @ 8:00 am - 5:00 pm

On August 26, 2016 the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) at UC Berkeley and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth brought together a small group of the nation’s leading labor economists to dig deep into the causes of stagnating wages. This conference, held in Berkeley, was the first part of a response to the critical need for new policies to address stagnant incomes in the United States. In order to create effective policies, they must be grounded in a clear understanding of what has caused the stagnation in the first place. Together, the group discussed what is known and still unknown about the forces driving the significant changes in the wage distribution since the 1970s, and shared new ideas about important research and policy questions looking forward. From this page you can find a complete list of the conference participants and the topics discussed.

A follow-up conference is planned for Washington, DC, in February 2017. This will focus on policy alternatives, rooted in the diagnoses discussed at the initial conference.

  • Program

    Introductions (Jesse Rothstein & Heather Boushey)
    Institutions

    Presenter: Richard Freeman
    Presenter slides PDF

    Discussant: Thomas Lemieux

    Skills and Technology

    Presenter: David Deming

    Presenter slides PDF
    Presenter notes PDF

    Discussant: Melissa Kearney
    Discussant slides PDF

    Firms

    Presenter: David Card
    Presenter slides PDF

    Discussant: Nick Bloom
    Discussant slides PPT

    Immigration

    Presenter: Giovanni Peri
    Did Immigration contribute to wage stagnation of unskilled workers? PDF
    Presenter slides PDF

    Discussant: Chinhui Juhn
    Discussant slides PPT

    Taxes

    Presenter: Emmanuel Saez
    Presenter slides PDF

    Discussant: Hilary Hoynes
    Discussant slides PDF

    Macroeconomic factors

    Presenter: Jared Bernstein
    Wage outcomes and macroeconomic conditions: what’s the connection? PDF
    Presenter slides PPT

    Discussant: Danny Yagan
    Discussant slides PDF

    Open discussion about policy responses

    Presenter: Lisa Lynch
    Presenter slides PPT

  • Participants

    Sylvia Allegretto, Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, UC Berkeley

    Jared Bernstein, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

    Sandra E. Black, Council of Economic Advisors

    Nicholas A. Bloom, Department of Economics, Stanford

    Heather Boushey, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

    Nick Bunker, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

    David Card, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

    David J. Deming, Harvard Graduate School of Education and NBER

    Nicole Fortin, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia

    Jessica Fulton, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

    Richard Freeman, Department of Economics, Harvard

    Alexander Gelber, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

    Sara Hinkley, Institute for Research Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley

    Hilary Hoynes, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

    Rucker Johnson, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

    Chinhui Juhn, Department of Economics, University of Houston

    Melissa Kearney, Department of Economics, University of Maryland

    Thomas Lemieux, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia

    Lisa Lynch, Social and Economic Policy, Brandeis University

    Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute

    Giovanni Peri, Department of Economics, UC Davis

    Michael Reich, Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, UC Berkeley

    Robert B. Reich, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

    Jesse Rothstein, Institute for Research Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley

    Emmanuel Saez, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

    Diane Schanzenbach, Human Development and Public Policy, Northwestern

    John Schmitt, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

    Christopher Walters, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

    Danny Yagan, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

    Ben Zipperer, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

Details

Date:
August 26, 2016
Time:
8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Event Category: