This book, which was first published in 1980, is concerned with one particular branch of growth theory, namely descriptive growth theory. It is typically assumed in growth theory that both the factors and goods market are perfectly competitive. In particular this implies amongst other things that the reward to each factor is identical in each sector of the economy. In this book the assumption of identical factor rewards is relaxed and the implications of an intersectoral wage differential for economic growth are analysed. There is also some discussion on the short-term and long-run effects of minimum wage legislation on growth. This book will serve as key reading for students of economics.

Excerpt from A Theory of Inter-Industry Wage Differentials The purpose of this paper is to present a mode which broadly fits some of the salient features of inter-industry wage differentials. Several recent empirical papers have found wage differences across industries to be large and persistent. They also show high concordance across occupations and countries. High wages appear to be paid in industries that have high capital/labor ratios and are highly profitable. Our model explains these facts on the basis of firm-specific human capital accumulation by individual workers. We focus on the bargaining between experienced workers and the firm over the division of the surplus output an experienced worker produces over that produced by inexperienced workers. We show that this surplus, and therefore equilibrium wages of trained workers, depends on the capital/labor ratio when the technology has putty-clay features. We also show that when there is multilateral bargaining between all firms and experienced workers, wages also depend on the profitability of the firm. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Wages are a vital economic variable in their influence on employment and unemployment and as the main source of personal income, affecting both living standards and labour incentives. Wage determination is studied here in an international perspective, using a common theoretical framework and statistical method through the individual country chapters to reveal similarities and differences between Japan, South Korea, the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and France.