TPRI Authors win Atkinson Prize for Research on Economic Inequality

James Bessen, Erich Denk, and Chen Meng have been honored with the Atkinson Prize, an award given every two years by the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ) to authors of high-quality articles published in the Journal of Economic Inequality for their paper “Perpetuating wage inequality: evidence from salary history bans.” The article examines the effects of salary history bans on private employer wage posting and pay, particularly its impact on women and minorities. The results of this research found that “when employers can access applicants’ salary histories while bargaining over wages, they can take advantage of past inequities, perpetuating inequality.”