ABSTRACT

Economic theory predicts that differences in wages for workers with similar skills will decline as labour mobility increase. This prediction is reminiscent of the ‘law of one price’, the notion that markets, if unfettered, eliminates price differentials of similar commodities across space. But can we really apply the economic logic of the commodity market to the labour market, governed as it is by institutions and politics as well as market forces? In this paper, we have examined the spread in farm workers’ wages across Swedish counties in 1757–1980. Besides nominal wages, the paper also offers cost of living indices by county. The paper enquires into sigma convergence and beta convergence. Long-run convergence, by both measures, was massive; the coefficient of variation, for instance, declined from about 28 per cent in the mid-eighteenth century to 4 per cent in 1980. Most of the compression, though, occurred in brief episodes rather than continuously. Markets, through labour mobility and trade, and institutions, through collective actions and labour laws, took turns in pushing towards regional convergence. The ‘law of one price’, we conclude, was not singlehandedly responsible for the elimination of regional wage differentials.

摘要

经济理论预测，随着劳动力流动性的提高，具有类似技能的工人的工资差异将减少。这种预测让人想起“一价定律”的观点，即市场不受约束地消除了跨空间类似商品的价格差异。但是，我们真的可以将商品市场的经济逻辑应用于由制度，政治以及市场力量支配的劳动力市场吗？在本文中，我们研究了1757–1980年瑞典各县农民的工资差异。除了名义工资外，本文还提供了各县的生活成本指数。本文探讨了sigma收敛和beta收敛。两项措施的长期融合是巨大的。例如，变异系数 从18世纪中叶的约28％下降到1980年的4％。尽管如此，大部分压缩是短暂发生的，而不是连续发生的。通过劳动力流动和贸易的市场，以及通过集体行动和劳动法的制度，市场轮流推动区域趋同。我们得出结论，“一价定律”并不是消除区域工资差异的唯一原因。