Although half again as many workers had jobs in 1990 as had them twenty years earlier, the increase in real wages for the average worker was disappointingly small. Wages for workers with additional schooling, however, increased dramatically in the 1980s.

In this volume, the author describes the changes in wages during the 1980s that led to increased rewards in schooling in the labor market. Kevin Murphy and Finis Welch show that the supply of skills was not the only factor influencing the structure of wages: shifts in demand resulting from international trade were also at work. John Bound and George Johnson examine technological change and outsourcing of production operations as sources of changes in demand and wages. Chinhui Juhn, Kevin Murphy, and Brooks Pierce analyze influeces on wage convergence for black and white workers. John Bishop investigates relationships between schooling levels, achievement, trends, and wages. Commentary on these analyses is provided by Gary Burtless, Lawrence Katz, Walter Oi, Albert Rees, and Sherwin Rosen.

Marvin H. Kosters is a resident scholar at AEI.