American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 40 1 March 2002 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&issue_date=March 2002 Journal Article Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market DaronAcemogluMassachusetts Institute of Technology 7 72 This essay discusses the effect of technical change on wage inequality. I argue that the behavior of wages and returns to schooling indicates that technical change has been skill-biased during the past sixty years. Furthermore, the recent increase in inequality is most likely due to an acceleration in skill bias. In contrast to twentieth-century developments, much of the technical change during the early nineteenth century appears to be skill-replacing. I suggest that this is because the increased supply of unskilled workers in the English cities made the introduction of these technologies profitable. On the other hand, the twentieth century has been characterized by skill-biased technical change because the rapid increase in the supply of skilled workers has induced the development of skill-complementary technologies. The recent acceleration in skill bias is in turn likely to have been a response to the acceleration in the supply of skills during the past several decades. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&article=1&issue_date=March 2002 10.1257/0022051026976 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 40 1 March 2002 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&issue_date=March 2002 Journal Article Delegated Monitors, Large and Small: Germany's Banking System, 1800–1914 Timothy W.GuinnaneDepartment of Economics, Yale University 73 124 Banks play a greater role in the German financial system than in those of the United States or Britain. Germany's large universal banks are admired by those who advocate bank deregulation in the United States. Others admire the universal banks for their supposed role in corporate governance and industrial finance. Many discussions distort the German banking system by overstressing one of several types of banks, and ignore the competition and cooperation between the famous universal banks and other banking groups. Tracing the historical development of the German banking system from the early nineteenth century places the large universal banks in context. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&article=2&issue_date=March 2002 10.1257/0022051026985 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 40 1 March 2002 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&issue_date=March 2002 Journal Article Looking Inside the Labor Market: A Review Article PeterHowittBrown University 125 138 When unemployed workers are available, why don't firms cut wages until the excess supply is eliminated? In his book, Why Wages Don't Fall During a Recession, Truman F. Bewley concludes, based on interviews with managers and labor leaders, that the most important factor inhibiting wage cuts is the psychological factor of morale. Bewley's field research has made an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of labor markets, by providing a close-up view of exactly what happens from the vantage point of the participants. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&article=3&issue_date=March 2002 10.1257/0022051026994 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 40 1 March 2002 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&issue_date=March 2002 Journal Article Can We Trust Social Capital? JoelSobelDepartment of Economics, University of California, San Diego 139 154 This essay looks at the literature on social capital from the perspective of game theory. It reviews Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam and Social Capital: A Multifaceted Approach edited by Partha Dasgupta and Ismail Serageldin. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&article=4&issue_date=March 2002 10.1257/0022051027001 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 40 1 March 2002 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&issue_date=March 2002 Journal Article Review of Skidelsky's John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain J. BradfordDelongUniversity of California, Berkeley and NBER 155 162 Skidelsky's three-volume biography of Keynes, of which this is the third, gives us Keynes, entire. The meat of the biography lies in the well-constructed narrative and in the magnificent portraits of Keynes and his age. Robert Skidelsky has given us a superb intellectual biography. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&article=5&issue_date=March 2002 10.1257/0022051027010 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 40 1 March 2002 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&issue_date=March 2002 Journal Article Book Reviews 163 226 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&article=6&issue_date=March 2002 10.1257/0022051027029 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 40 1 March 2002 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&issue_date=March 2002 Journal Article Annotated Listing of New Books 227 331 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&article=7&issue_date=March 2002 10.1257/0022051027038 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 40 1 March 2002 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&issue_date=March 2002 Journal Article JEL Classification System 332 343 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=40&issue=1&article=8&issue_date=March 2002 10.1257/0022051027047