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The majority of mainstream economists believe that globalization and trade liberalization have had a minor role in increasing U.S. wage inequality. A minority argues that capital mobility and outsourcing indicate a larger effect. This paper first surveys these views, and then argues that how we understand the policy consequences of trade liberalization helps determine the character our analysis of the issue itself. Thus, a shift in policy perspective, to consider the "equity costs" of trade liberalization in terms of eroded U.S. labor market institutions, produces a larger framework for analyzing the consequences of globalization and trade liberalization than is available in traditional comparative advantage efficiency reasoning. From this wider perspective, trade liberalization has likely had a greater impact on U.S. wage inequality than even the minority mainstream position allows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the reorganization of work in labor markets dominated by the presence of high-technology industries from 1980 to 199O. Using Public Use Microdata Samples, we identify trends in spatial, industrial, occupational, gender, and racial divisions of labor and their effects on earnings inequality. Patterns in these changing work structures are linked to both general and specific theories of labor market development, structures, and processes. We find that centers of high-tech employment exhibit varied patterns of agglomeration, decline, and dispersion over the decade. Moreover, industrial and occupational divisions embedded within these high-tech spaces show variation across labor market areas as well. We identify some general trends, including the increasing dominance of upper-tier workers (professional, technical, and managerial) across most high-tech areas and the effects of Reagan's defense-related policies in the generation of new high-tech areas in certain locales. An analysis of the processes of earnings generation in high-tech labor markets reinforces the importance of divisions or segmentation of labor for understanding earnings inequality and its embeddedness in specific labor market contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]