ABSTRACT
A theory of discrimination is inseparable from a theory of wage setting. In contrast with neoclassical and neoinstitutionalist models that isolate the price dimension of wages, our framework for understanding wage setting places labor markets within a larger context. Our multidimensional approach not only allows us to tell a richer and less deterministic story, it also highlights the differing experiences of wage earners by gender, race and ethnicity, and other salient characteristics. We treat wages, in the words of John Commons, as "a process and not an attribute" (1923, 111; italics in original). As we will see, a feminist institutionalist analysis of wage setting has methodological implications for how we measure and study discrimination
