Alan Manning

Alan Manning studied from 1978 to 1981 at Clare College, Cambridge, and from 1981 to 1984 at Nuffield College, Oxford, obtaining a BA (Hons) and a MPhil in economics before graduating with a DPhil in economics from Oxford University in 1985.

After his MPhil, Manning began working at Birkbeck College as lecturer, a position that he held until 1989 when he moved to another lectureship at the London School of Economics. At LSE, he was promoted first to reader in 1993 and then to professor in 1997, a position he has held ever since. At LSE, Manning has been the Director of the Labour Markets and Community Programmes of the Centre for Economic Performance since 2000. Throughout his career, Manning has held editorial positions at the Review of Economic Studies, Labour Economics, New Economy, Economica, Journal of Labor Economics, Applied Economics Journal, and European Economic Review. His contributions to labour economics were rewarded with a fellowship of the Society of Labor Economists in 2014. He was elected fellow of the European Economic Association in 2021.{{Cite web|title=Fellows {{!}} EEA|url=https://www.eeassoc.org/fellows|access-date=2021-07-05|website=www.eeassoc.org}}

Alan Manning's research concentrates on labour economics, with a focus on unemployment, minimum wages, monopsony, immigration and gender pay gaps in the UK and Europe.[http://www.lse.ac.uk/economics/people/faculty/alan-manning Profile of Alan Manning on the website of LSE. Retrieved April 6th, 2019.] According to IDEAS/RePEc, Manning belongs to the top 1% of economists in terms of research output.[https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.all.html#pma218 Manning ranks among the top 1% of authors registered on IDEAS/RePEc. Retrieved April 6th, 2019.] In his research, Manning has been a frequent collaborator of Stephen Machin, another British labour economist.

Manning's first area of research has been wage bargaining. This research included the integration of trade union models in a sequential bargaining framework,{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2233326 | jstor=2233326 | title=An Integration of Trade Union Models in a Sequential Bargaining Framework | last1=Manning | first1=Alan | journal=The Economic Journal | year=1987 | volume=97 | issue=385 | pages=121–139 | doi=10.2307/2233326 | url-access=subscription }} the relationship between the tax system and wage bargaining in the UK (with Ben Lockwood),{{cite journal | url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/004727279390102Y | doi=10.1016/0047-2727(93)90102-Y | title=Wage setting and the tax system theory and evidence for the United Kingdom | year=1993 | last1=Lockwood | first1=Ben | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | journal=Journal of Public Economics | volume=52 | pages=1–29 | url-access=subscription }} and the impact of wage bargaining on the link between unemployment and inflation (the Phillips curve).{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2234339 | jstor=2234339 | title=Wage Bargaining and the Phillips Curve: The Identification and Specification of Aggregate Wage Equations | last1=Manning | first1=Alan | journal=The Economic Journal | year=1993 | volume=103 | issue=416 | pages=98–118 | doi=10.2307/2234339 | url-access=subscription }} In the late 1980s, in work with George Alogoskoufis, Manning argued that workers' reluctance to reduce their wage expectations, along with firms' slow adjustment of employment, was among the main reasons for persistently high European unemployment.{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1344492 | jstor=1344492 | title=On the Persistence of Unemployment | last1=Alogoskoufis | first1=George S. | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | last3=Calmfors | first3=Lars | last4=Danthine | first4=Jean-Pierre | journal=Economic Policy | year=1988 | volume=3 | issue=7 | pages=428–469 | doi=10.2307/1344492 | url-access=subscription }} In the late 1990s, Manning and Machin also investigated the topic of long-term unemployment.{{cite book | url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1573446399300389 | doi=10.1016/S1573-4463(99)30038-9 | title=Chapter 47 the causes and consequences of longterm unemployment in Europe | series=Handbook of Labor Economics | year=1999 | last1=Machin | first1=Stephen | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | volume=3 | pages=3085–3139 | isbn=9780444501899 }}

From the mid-1990s on, Manning turned his attention to the study of minimum wages, especially in the UK. Together with Stephen Machin, he found that decreases in the ratio of minimum wages to average wages in the UK in the 1980s had contributed to the growing wage dispersion without raising employment.,{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2524423 | jstor=2524423 | title=The Effects of Minimum Wages on Wage Dispersion and Employment: Evidence from the U.K. Wages Councils | last1=Machin | first1=Stephen | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | journal=Industrial and Labor Relations Review | year=1994 | volume=47 | issue=2 | pages=319–329 | doi=10.2307/2524423 }} a finding maintained in further work with Machin and Richard Dickens on the UK.{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209911 | jstor=10.1086/209911 | doi=10.1086/209911 | title=The Effects of Minimum Wages on Employment: Theory and Evidence from Britain | year=1999 | last1=Dickens | first1=Richard | last2=Machin | first2=Stephen | last3=Manning | first3=Alan | journal=Journal of Labor Economics | volume=17 | issue=1 | pages=1–22 | s2cid=7012497 }} Motivated by his research in the UK and further research by Card, Krueger and Katz in the US, Manning showed how, contrary to conventional wisdom, the theoretical effects of minimum wages on employment are ambiguous, with e.g. a binding minimum wage potentially raising employment even in the presence of involuntary unemployment.{{Cite journal |url=https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/110/4/1111/1870515?redirectedFrom=fulltext |doi=10.2307/2946650|jstor=2946650 |title=How do We Know that Real Wages Are too High? |last1=Manning |first1=Alan |journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics |year=1995 |volume=110 |issue=4 |pages=1111–1125 |url-access=subscription }} At the European level, in joint work several co-authors, Manning found that minimum wages in Europe between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s only caused higher unemployment if they kept the wages of low-wage jobs from decreasing, were relatively small for young people relative to average earnings when compared to the U.S., and didn't appear to have reduced employment, except possibly for young workers.{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1344707 | jstor=1344707 | title=The Economic Impact of Minimum Wages in Europe | last1=Dolado | first1=Juan | last2=Kramarz | first2=Francis | last3=Machin | first3=Stephen | last4=Manning | first4=Alan | last5=Margolis | first5=David | last6=Teulings | first6=Coen | last7=Saint-Paul | first7=Gilles | last8=Keen | first8=Michael | journal=Economic Policy | year=1996 | volume=11 | issue=23 | pages=319–372 | doi=10.2307/1344707 | hdl=10016/3305 | hdl-access=free }} In the early 2000s, Manning studied the impact of the UK National Minimum Wage (NMW) Act of 1998, finding e.g. in a study with Machin and Lupin Rahman that the NMW reduced wage inequality in the heavily industries such as the residential care homes industry by compressing the bottom of the wage distribution, while also reducing employment and hours worked,{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40005144 | jstor=40005144 | title=Where the Minimum Wage Bites Hard: Introduction of Minimum Wages to a Low Wage Sector | last1=Machin | first1=Stephen | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | last3=Rahman | first3=Lupin | journal=Journal of the European Economic Association | year=2003 | volume=1 | issue=1 | pages=154–180 | doi=10.1162/154247603322256792 }} though further research with Dickens suggested that the NMW's impact on wage inequality was overall limited due to only affecting 6–7% of UK workers directly.{{cite journal | jstor=3559879 | title=Has the National Minimum Wage Reduced UK Wage Inequality? | last1=Dickens | first1=Richard | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) | year=2004 | volume=167 | issue=4 | pages=613–626 | doi=10.1111/j.1467-985X.2004.aeI2.x | s2cid=122822481 | doi-access=free }} More recently, together with Ghazala Asmat and John van Reenen, Manning has studied the impact of the deregulation of product and labour markets in the OECD on the wage share, finding that, on average, privatization accounts for a firth of the decrease in labour's share between 1980 and 2000, but for nearly half in Britain and France.{{cite journal | url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0335.2011.00906.x | doi=10.1111/j.1468-0335.2011.00906.x | title=Privatization and the Decline of Labour's Share: International Evidence from Network Industries | year=2012 | last1=Azmat | first1=Ghazala | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | last3=Reenen | first3=John Van | journal=Economica | volume=79 | issue=315 | pages=470–492 | s2cid=56258974 | url-access=subscription }}

Since the 1990s, Manning has researched the impact of employers' market power in labour markets and its impact on especially wages, e.g. in the UK.{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209911 | jstor=10.1086/209911 | doi=10.1086/209911 | title=The Effects of Minimum Wages on Employment: Theory and Evidence from Britain | year=1999 | last1=Dickens | first1=Richard | last2=Machin | first2=Stephen | last3=Manning | first3=Alan | journal=Journal of Labor Economics | volume=17 | issue=1 | pages=1–22 | s2cid=7012497 }} This research agenda was popularized in a JEP article by Manning, Bhaskar and To,{{Cite journal |doi=10.1257/0895330027300 |title=Oligopsony and Monopsonistic Competition in Labor Markets |year=2002 |last1=Bhaskar |first1=V. |last2=Manning |first2=Alan |last3=To |first3=Ted |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=155–174 |doi-access=free }} research on modern monopsonies in the UK,{{cite journal | url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927537103000186 | doi=10.1016/S0927-5371(03)00018-6 | title=The real thin theory: Monopsony in modern labour markets | year=2003 | last1=Manning | first1=Alan | journal=Labour Economics | volume=10 | issue=2 | pages=105–131 }} and, perhaps most importantly, in Monopsony in Motion,[https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7522.html Manning, A. (2003). Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets. Princeton: Princeton University Press.] a book that comprehensively sets out Manning's thinking about modern monopsonies in labour markets and was received with mixed reviews by other economists.{{cite journal | url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1357151042000286456 | doi=10.1080/1357151042000286456 | title=Is monopsony the right way to model labor markets? A review of Alan Manning's monopsony in motion | year=2004 | last1=Kuhn | first1=Peter | journal=International Journal of the Economics of Business | volume=11 | issue=3 | pages=369–378 | s2cid=17512305 | url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal | url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/001979390405700212 | doi=10.1177/001979390405700212 | title=Book Review: Labor Economics: Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets | year=2004 | last1=Rizzo | first1=Michael | journal=ILR Review | volume=57 | issue=2 | pages=309–311 | s2cid=157695999 | url-access=subscription }} A comprehensive survey of imperfect competition in the labour market by Manning was published in the Handbook of Labor Economics.{{cite book | url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169721811024099 | doi=10.1016/S0169-7218(11)02409-9 | title=Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market | series=Handbook of Labor Economics | year=2011 | last1=Alan | first1=Manning | volume=4 | pages=973–1041 | isbn=9780444534521 }}

Another important field in Manning's research are gender-specific issues in labour market outcomes. Together with Azmat and Maia Guell, Manning shows that, in countries with large gender gaps in unemployment rates, there also are large gender gaps in flows between employment and unemployment, possibly due to the combination of gender differences in human capital and its interaction with labour market institutions.{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/497817 | jstor=10.1086/497817 | doi=10.1086/497817 | title=Gender Gaps in Unemployment Rates in OECD Countries | year=2006 | last1=Azmat | first1=Ghazala | last2=Güell | first2=Maia | last3=Manning | first3=Alan | journal=Journal of Labor Economics | volume=24 | issue=1 | pages=1–37 | s2cid=154573165 | hdl=20.500.11820/d1ea2b9d-2fa1-41e5-ae66-71c5066adf38 | hdl-access=free }} In a study with Barbara Petrongolo on the part-time pay penalty for women in the UK, Manning attributes half of the penalty to differences in the characteristics of female full-time and part-time workers, especially occupational segregation, which also explains most of its growth in the 1980s and 1990s.{{Cite journal |url=https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/118/526/F28/5089473?redirectedFrom=PDF |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02115.x |title=The Part-Time Pay Penalty for Women in Britain |year=2008 |last1=Manning |first1=Alan |last2=Petrongolo |first2=Barbara |journal=The Economic Journal |volume=118 |issue=526 |pages=F28–F51 |s2cid=153810424 |hdl=10419/33689 |hdl-access=free }} Finally, in work with Joanna Swaffield, Manning has also studied the gender gap in early-career wage growth in the UK.{{cite journal | url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02158.x | doi=10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02158.x | title=The Gender Gap in Early-Career Wage Growth | year=2008 | last1=Manning | first1=Alan | last2=Swaffield | first2=Joanna | journal=The Economic Journal | volume=118 | issue=530 | pages=983–1024 | s2cid=154780633 }}

A more recent field of Manning's research is the study of technological change and job polarization. In the mid-2000s, in the wake of research by Autor, Levy and Murnane, Manning argued that the demand for the least-skilled jobs may be growing, albeit dependent on the physical proximity to the more-skilled.{{cite journal | url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.0036-9292.2004.00322.x | doi=10.1111/j.0036-9292.2004.00322.x | title=We Can Work It Out: The Impact of Technological Change on the Demand for Low-Skill Workers | year=2004 | last1=Manning | first1=Alan | journal=Scottish Journal of Political Economy | volume=51 | issue=5 | pages=581–608 | s2cid=153742036 }} In his most highly cited publication, together with Maarten Goos, Manning showed that the UK had experienced since 1975 a pattern of polarization with rises in employment shares in the highest- and lowest-wage occupations and a "hollowing out" of medium-wage occupations, a pattern consistent with Autor et al.'s "routinization" hypothesis; for the 1970s to the 1990s, this polarization accounts for, respectively, half and one third of the growth in wage inequality in the upper and lower parts of the UK wage distribution.{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40043079 | jstor=40043079 | title=Lousy and Lovely Jobs: The Rising Polarization of Work in Britain | last1=Goos | first1=Maarten | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | journal=The Review of Economics and Statistics | year=2007 | volume=89 | issue=1 | pages=118–133 | doi=10.1162/rest.89.1.118 | s2cid=27727245 }} This finding – the concentration of employment in low- and high-paid jobs with high non-routine task contents – was maintained in further research by Manning and Goos with Anna Salomons on overall Europe,{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25592375 | jstor=25592375 | last1=Goos | first1=Maarten | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | last3=Salomons | first3=Anna | title=Job Polarization in Europe | journal=The American Economic Review | year=2009 | volume=99 | issue=2 | pages=58–63 | doi=10.1257/aer.99.2.58 | url-access=subscription }} wherein routine-biased technological change and offshoring play key roles.{{Cite journal |url=https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.104.8.2509 |doi=10.1257/aer.104.8.2509 |title=Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring |year=2014 |last1=Goos |first1=Maarten |last2=Manning |first2=Alan |last3=Salomons |first3=Anna |journal=American Economic Review |volume=104 |issue=8 |pages=2509–2526 |s2cid=32890608 }}

One of Manning's most recent research endeavours concerns the analysis of immigration and identity. For instance, together with Dustmann, Glitz and Algan, he found that in the UK, France and partly also in Germany, the gap between natives and immigrants in terms of educational achievement decreases over generations, though overall in all three countries the labour market performance of most immigrant groups as well as their descendants is still generally worse than that of natives, even if differences in education, regional allocation and experience are taken into account.{{cite journal | doi=10.1111/j.1468-0297.2009.02338.x | title=The Economic Situation of First and Second-Generation Immigrants in France, Germany and the United Kingdom | year=2010 | last1=Algan | first1=Yann | last2=Dustmann | first2=Christian | last3=Glitz | first3=Albrecht | last4=Manning | first4=Alan | journal=The Economic Journal | volume=120 | issue=542 | pages=F4–F30 | s2cid=18592276 | doi-access=free }} In research with Sanchari Roy on the extent and determinants of British identity, he found that "the vast majority of those born in Britain, of whatever ethnicity or religion, think of themselves as British", while "newly arrived immigrants almost never think of themselves as British but the longer they remain in the UK, the more likely it is that they do".{{cite journal | url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2009.02335.x | doi=10.1111/j.1468-0297.2009.02335.x | title=Culture Clash or Culture Club? National Identity in Britain | year=2010 | last1=Manning | first1=Alan | last2=Roy | first2=Sanchari | journal=The Economic Journal | volume=120 | issue=542 | pages=F72–F100 | s2cid=154180076 | url-access=subscription }} Finally, in a study with Marco Manacorda and Jonathan Wadsworth on the impact of immigration to the UK on the structure of wages, Manning found that immigration primarily reduced the wages of immigrants – and in particular university-educated immigrants – with little effect on the wages of the native-born, suggesting that UK natives and foreign born workers are imperfect substitutes.{{cite journal | url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1542-4774.2011.01049.x | doi=10.1111/j.1542-4774.2011.01049.x | title=The Impact of Immigration on the Structure of Wages: Theory and Evidence from Britain | year=2012 | last1=Manacorda | first1=Marco | last2=Manning | first2=Alan | last3=Wadsworth | first3=Jonathan | journal=Journal of the European Economic Association | volume=10 | pages=120–151 | s2cid=13921268 }}

• Manning, Alan (2003). Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets. Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|0691113122}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.lse.ac.uk/economics/people/faculty/alan-manning Homepage at the London School of Economics]
• [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2NKB6ssAAAAJ&hl=en Google Scholar webpage of Alan Manning]

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Category:1960 births

Category:Academics of the London School of Economics

Category:British economists

Category:Labor economists

Category:Living people

Category:Fellows of the European Economic Association

Category:Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge

Category:Alumni of Nuffield College, Oxford