Faculty
Nathan Wilmers is the Sarofim Family Career Development Associate Professor and an Associate Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is in the core faculty of the Institute for Work and Employment Research and affiliated with the Economic Sociology program. For the most up-to-date information on his research, please see his personal website at www.nathanwilmers.com.
Wilmers researches wage and earnings inequality, economic sociology, and the sociology of labor. In his empirical research, he studies how wage stagnation and rising earnings inequality result from weakening labor market institutions, changing market power, and job restructuring. More broadly, he is interested in bringing insights from economic sociology to the study of labor markets and the wage structure. His research has been published in Administrative Science Quarterly, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, ILR Review, Journal of Labor Economics, PNAS, and Social Forces.
Wilmers holds a BA in philosophy from the University of Chicago and an MA and PhD in sociology from Harvard University.
Massenkoff, Maxim and Nathan Wilmers. Journal of Labor Economics. Forthcoming.
Massenkoff, Maxim and Nathan Wilmers. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023): 474-507. Download Preprint.
Aeppli, Clem and Nathan Wilmers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 119, No. 42 (2022): e220430511.
Wilmers, Nathan, and William Kimball. Social Forces Vol. 10, No. 1 (2022): 111-149.
Kreisberg, Nicole and Nathan Wilmers. ILR Review Vol. 75, No. 4 (2022): 943–973.
Erin L. Kelly, Hazhir Rahmandad, Nathan Wilmers, and Aishwarya Yadama. Washington, DC: June 2022.
In a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Clem Aeppli and MIT Sloan Associate Professor Nathan Wilmers find that a plateau in U.S. earnings inequality that started around 2012 was primarily due to rapid wage gains by workers at the low end of the labor market,
A new study has found that U.S earnings inequality has stalled over the last decade. It marks the first sustained reversal of rising earnings inequality in approximately 30 years.
"This college premium has been a big source of inequality and rising inequality over the past 40 years."
"It's unexpected good news for those of us who have been studying inequality trends for a while."
After decades of increase since the 1980s, income inequality peaked in 2012 and has held steady or perhaps even fallen since.
"Renters are exposed to exploitation on account of their reliance on housing and their lack of options for securing it."
