One way to put matters, more in accordance with the empirical experience of many and the daily drumbeat of headlines in the back pages of newspapers than theoretical or structural speculations or explanations, is that there has been a trend toward the increasing transfer of risk from capital to labor. Educational/professional qualifications would then be a proxy for an greater institutional degree of protection from and capacity to compensate for or take advantage of risk. Also,- (though this is sheer specualtion since I lack any empirical figures)-, insofar as there has been an increase in the intersectoral mobility/flexibility of capital, which, after all, should result in increased balance and efficiency in the overall economy, according to economic theory, partly due to technical change and the changes in business organization that they render possible, partly due to strategic evasions of regulation, often campaigned for under the slogan of increased competition, the lags and losses suffered by labor, due to its inherently lesser degree of mobility, combined with the accompanying loss of organization/decreased bargaining power, would depress wage incomes.

I too hate that short chopped up prose of Hemmingway. But john, have mercy.
This:
"Also,- (though this is sheer specualtion since I lack any empirical figures)-, insofar as there has been an increase in the intersectoral mobility/flexibility of capital, which, after all, should result in increased balance and efficiency in the overall economy, according to economic theory, partly due to technical change and the changes in business organization that they render possible, partly due to strategic evasions of regulation, often campaigned for under the slogan of increased competition, the lags and losses suffered by labor, due to its inherently lesser degree of mobility, combined with the accompanying loss of organization/decreased bargaining power, would depress wage incomes."
is enough to kill a librarian. [Or something. Are you trying to bait me? I surrender.] Even the thought of taking a word count on this PRIZE, defeats me. When I come to your posts now, I immediately scan for periods and finding none, run to the coffee machine for fresh reinforcements. You are going to kill me by caffine overdose if you do not mend your ways.

This has been a public announcement on the nation's general health. And Good Style.

Periods. Good things to have around. Use lots of them.

Sorry John. I did need to get that off my chest and would not bother if I thought you were just an old windbag. Your dear readers are having to work sooooo much harder to find you. And may decide the trouble is not worth it. I as your unsolicited, but caring agent, think otherwise.
Shall we continue? The transfer of risk to labor strikes me as "quaint" [to use the words of the new AT]. The pirateering of the SSTF is a case where it appears this has been going on for 30yrs. I want to say the "risk" language is a tad euphemistic in our day and age. Secondly, the point of this Fed-sponsored study was to identify exactly how wages behaved over the past 40 years by examining the data (sited here for our perusal). How equitable was it and why? --I think they do a good job, you? [I think our host has done a good job expanding on those findings and taking the time to illustrate them mathematically.]

SSTF--Social Security Trust Fund?

The reference to risk transfer is an admitttedly recondite principle from dynamic general equilibrium [DGE] economics, esp. stochastic DGE (formerly known as "rational expectations/real business cycle theory"; to see my rants against RE/RBC, see 1, 2, 3, 4,5).

Risk here is the risk of a substantial change in income resulting from the failure of a venture; in older general equilibrium models, like that of Leon Walras, firms were included as intermediaries; Ronald Coase speculated on the natural limits to the size of firms ("Nature of the Firm" PDF).

Oddly, the role of the firm was assumed away when increasing computer power made it easier to incorporate the firm into DGE models. So a modern economist sticks to SDGE models in which the US economy is approximated by 295 million homogenous persons maximizing utility from a homogenously distributed endowment of capital. Hence, the microeconomic implications of this shift that John describes, are not really discussed in modern economics.

My apologies for assuming a less technical sense of the word 'risk' than that one that falls out of DGE. [I will poke into those rants cited as soon as I leave my 2 cents here.] Tell me you jest when you write "So a modern economist sticks to SDGE models...". Is this (Modern Economics) infatuation with the harder scientific models (physics) paying dividends to the field and its advancement or just transitory notoriety for a few? It almost seems like a deliberate attempt to make the field irrelevant. Tell me it ain't so.