FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND WAGE INEQUALITY: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

We argue that financial market development contributed to the rise in the skill premium and residual wage inequality in the United States since the 1980s. We present an endogenous growth model with imperfect credit markets and establish how improving the efficiency of these markets affects modes of production, innovation, and wage dispersion between skilled and unskilled workers. The experience of U.S. states following banking deregulation provides empirical support for our hypothesis. We find that wages of skilled workers increased by between 0.5% and 6.3% following deregulation while those of unskilled workers fell by between 3.5% and 8.7%. Similarly, residual (or within‐group) inequality increased; the 90–50 percentile ratio of residuals from a Mincerian wage regression and their standard deviation increased by 4.2% and 1.7%, respectively. (JEL E25, J31, G24)     

Dealing with Misconduct in Biomedical Research: A Review of the Problems and the Proposed Methods for Improvement

The increasing complexity of scientific research has been followed by increasing varieties of research misconduct. Dealing with misconduct involves the processes of detection, reporting, and investigation of misconduct. Each of these steps is associated with numerous problems which need to be addressed. Misconduct investigation should not stop with inquiries and disciplinary actions in specific episodes of misconduct. It is necessary to decrease the personal price paid by those who expose misconduct and to protect the personal and professional interests of honest researchers accused of misconduct unfairly or mistakenly. There is no dearth of suggestions to improve the objectivity and fairness of investigations. What is needed is the willingness to test the various options and implement the most suitable ones.