Wage Inequalities in East and West

This book analyses wage hierarchy in market and planning theory in Western and Soviet-type systems.

Dominique Redor (Author)

9780521395311, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 December 1992

232 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.51 kg

"...an important book....well argued and useful....I would highly recommend the empirical part of the book. Despite the disappearance of socialism, the empirical part has not lost its relevance simply because wage structure is a sluggish series that changes slowly. Redor's results will therefore remain useful for a number of years to come." Branko Milanovic, Journal of Comparative Economics

This 1994 book analyses wage hierarchy in market and planning theory, and how these theories can be used as a basis for the comparison of wage structures in Western and Soviet-type systems. The author analyses statistical data from ten countries in both systems at the beginning of the eighties, and attempts to account for wage dispersion by examining such factors as education and training, discrimination against women, and market structure, as well as the influence of systemic factors. Professor Redor asserts that systemic differences are not the most significant determinants of wage inequality (the Soviet Union is found to have been on a par with the United Kingdom for example), and argues that similarities between the two systems in the dispersion of wages are due to similar patterns of work organisation and wage policies within firms, and that many determinants of wage inequality are in fact common to both systems.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. The Analysis of Wage Structures in the Western System and in the Soviet-type System: 1. The wage hierarchy in the market and planning theories
2. Constructing a comparative model of wage structures
3. A statistical analysis of the wage dispersion
4. Analyzing intersector earning differences
5. Stability and adaptation of wage structures
Part II. Why are the Wage Structures in both Systems so Similar: 6. Two different types of wage regulation
7. The structuring role of sectors and large firms in the two systems
8. Pay and the division of labour between manual and non-manual workers
9. The dispersion of disposable incomes of households in the two systems
10. A tentative synthesis
Conclusion
Appendix
Glossary
Statistical sources and bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Labour economics [KCF]