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On August 26, 2016 the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) at UC Berkeley and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth brought together a small group of the nation’s leading labor economists to dig deep into the causes of stagnating wages. This conference, held in Berkeley, was the first part of a response to the critical need for new policies to address stagnant incomes in the United States. In order to create effective policies, they must be grounded in a clear understanding of what has caused the stagnation in the first place. Together, the group discussed what is known and still unknown about the forces driving the significant changes in the wage distribution since the 1970s, and shared new ideas about important research and policy questions looking forward. From this page you can find a complete list of the conference participants and the topics discussed.

A follow-up conference is planned for Washington, DC, in February 2017. This will focus on policy alternatives, rooted in the diagnoses discussed at the initial conference.
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Program

Introductions (Jesse Rothstein & Heather Boushey)
Institutions

Presenter: Richard Freeman
Presenter slides PDF

Discussant: Thomas Lemieux

Skills and Technology

Presenter: David Deming

Presenter slides PDF
Presenter notes PDF

Discussant: Melissa Kearney
Discussant slides PDF

Firms

Presenter: David Card
Presenter slides PDF

Discussant: Nick Bloom
Discussant slides PPT

Immigration

Presenter: Giovanni Peri
Did Immigration contribute to wage stagnation of unskilled workers? PDF
Presenter slides PDF

Discussant: Chinhui Juhn
Discussant slides PPT

Taxes

Presenter: Emmanuel Saez
Presenter slides PDF

Discussant: Hilary Hoynes
Discussant slides PDF

Macroeconomic factors

Presenter: Jared Bernstein
Wage outcomes and macroeconomic conditions: what’s the connection? PDF
Presenter slides PPT

Discussant: Danny Yagan
Discussant slides PDF

Open discussion about policy responses

Presenter: Lisa Lynch
Presenter slides PPT

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Participants

Sylvia Allegretto, Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, UC Berkeley

Jared Bernstein, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Sandra E. Black, Council of Economic Advisors

Nicholas A. Bloom, Department of Economics, Stanford

Heather Boushey, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

Nick Bunker, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

David Card, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

David J. Deming, Harvard Graduate School of Education and NBER

Nicole Fortin, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia

Jessica Fulton, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

Richard Freeman, Department of Economics, Harvard

Alexander Gelber, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

Sara Hinkley, Institute for Research Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley

Hilary Hoynes, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

Rucker Johnson, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

Chinhui Juhn, Department of Economics, University of Houston

Melissa Kearney, Department of Economics, University of Maryland

Thomas Lemieux, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia

Lisa Lynch, Social and Economic Policy, Brandeis University

Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute

Giovanni Peri, Department of Economics, UC Davis

Michael Reich, Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, UC Berkeley

Robert B. Reich, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

Jesse Rothstein, Institute for Research Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley

Emmanuel Saez, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

Diane Schanzenbach, Human Development and Public Policy, Northwestern

John Schmitt, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

Christopher Walters, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

Danny Yagan, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

Ben Zipperer, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
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