Wage Stagnation and the Decline of Standardized Pay Rates, 1974–1991
利用新的企业-职业微观数据，研究发现1970-80年代自由裁量工资设定显著扩大，蓝领工人工资不再按职位或资历标准化，导致工资下降，尤其对低薪工人和之前支付高于市场工资的企业影响更大。
Using new establishment-by-occupation microdata, we show that the use of discretionary wage setting significantly expanded in the 1970s and 1980s. Increasingly, wages for blue-collar workers were not standardized by job title or seniority but instead subject to managerial discretion. When establishments abandoned standardized pay rates, wages fell, particularly for the lowest-paid workers in a job and for those in establishments that previously paid above market rates. This shift away from standardized pay rates, in context of a broader decline in worker bargaining power, accelerated the decline in real wages experienced by blue-collar workers in the 1980s.