The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-Century
聚焦1940年代美国工资的异常压缩现象，发现工资按教育、经验和职业的差距缩小，男性工资90-10对数差从1940年的1.45降至1950年的1.06，到1980年代末又恢复至1940年水平。二战和战时劳工委员会部分促成了这一压缩，但主因是受教育劳动力大幅扩张时对非熟练劳动力需求的增加。
The era of wage stretching has been a current focus, but we direct attention here to a decade of extraordinary wage compression—the 1940s. Wages narrowed by education, job experience, and occupation, and compression occurred within cells. The 90–10 differential in the log of wages for men was 1.45 in 1940 but 1.06 in 1950. By the late 1980s it returned to its 1940 level, thus restoring a dispersion of 50 years ago. World War II and the National War Labor Board share some credit for the Great Compression, but much was due to an increased demand for unskilled labor when educated labor was greatly expanding.