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Relative Wages and the Changing Industrial Distribution of Employment in Australia*
Author(s) -
KEATING MICHAEL
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
economic record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1475-4932
pISSN - 0013-0249
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4932.1983.tb00828.x
Subject(s) - economics , wage , labour economics , distribution (mathematics) , labour supply , elasticity (physics) , efficiency wage , mathematical analysis , materials science , mathematics , composite material
A simple model is used to analyze the role of changing relative wages in industry labour market adjustment between 1948–49 and 1979–80. Not with standing Australia's highly centralized system of wage determination, it was found that it has permitted modest changes in wage relativities which were generally in the right direction. To the extent that these changes were sufficient to equilibrate the labour market this probably reflects some important changes in the composition of the labour force and the high elasticity of supply from one industry to another.