ABSTRACT
We now extend Smith’s early work to the last two decades using a larger sample of countries reported by the ILO. The time series covering the seventies and the eighties are not complete for all the countries, which have reported the relevant statistics. We have therefore calculated the annual growth rates of money wages and consumer prices in the manufacturing sector — for as many countries and for as long a period as possible. From these figures, we derived the growth rates of real wages for the countries and periods concerned.4 These results for Africa, America and Asia are listed separately in Table 4.1. The growth rates are reported for five-yearly periods starting around 1969, as well as for the two decades in their entirety. The time frame for all available series are also reported in the tables for each sample country. The reader should focus attention on the time period when the growth rate of wages for a particular country is studied. For most countries, however, the series extend from sometime around the early seventies to the late eighties. For a few, data exist for only the more recent decade.
