2.30-3.45 PM
What can you expect?
Wages are not only determined by employee productivity. It is also a matter power and institutions. In the US and many other countries can a weakened labour movement and the deterioration of labour-friendly institutions, explain many of the macroeconomic trends we have seen over the last couple of decades. This relates to the falling wage share of GDP, stock market valuations, the profitability of the business sector and stagnating real wages. To reverse this trend, the labour movement should be strengthened, minimum wages should be increased and competition policy should be sharpened.
Anna Stansbury is an assistant professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2021 she defended her PhD thesis in economics, which focused on the role of power in labour markets. She has also done research on how firms are affected by trade unions. Stansbury is involved in the project Shaping the Future of Work, together with, among others, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, two of last years Nobel laureates in the economic sciences.