Measuring the relationship between high technology development strategies and wage inequality

摘要

Growing income and wage inequality in a range of countries has raised concern. High-technology development may be contributing to this inequality, by encouraging higher wages at the upper end of the income distribution. Most studies of the possibility of this effect have used generic, aggregated data. In this paper, we introduce the possibility of linking wage inequality directly to specific industrial strategies using the Theil Index of inequality. This measure portrays the portion of wage inequality that is attributable to wages in specific industries. We illustrate this concept with data from U.S. states.