Summary Fall 1997

Scholars have begun to find explanations for the growing earnings inequality in the United States—not in inexorable market forces, foreign competition, or technological change in itself, but in corporate choices regarding pay, skill, and the adoption of new technology. This issue of the Summary reports on the work of several scholars in this area: William Lazonick compares the distribution of organizational learning in the American and Japanese auto industries, Robert Forrant studies the decline of the machine tool industry in the United States, and Philip Moss proposes case studies of firms’ strategies as more productive than econometric analysis.

Contents: New Working Papers: Minimum Wage and Justice? * Earnings Inequality and the Quality of Jobs: The Status of Current Research and Proposals for an Expanded Research Agenda * Second Generations: Past, Present, Future * Organizational Learning and International Competition: The Skill-Base Hypothesis * Skiki vono ko shtuvalo? The Seignorage Loss from Monetary Stabilization in Ukraine * Good Jobs and the Cutting Edge: The US Machine Tool Industry and Sustainable Prosperity * Aggregate Demand, Investment, and the NAIRU * The NAIRU: A Critical Appraisal * Institute News: Immigration Symposium * Debates-Debates * Research Update: Cambridge University Visiting Scholars