'The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com .' Copyright Blackwell Publishing DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.13924.xThe UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey (GPS) is one of the five near-infrared Public Legacy Surveys that are being undertaken by the UKIDSS consortium, using the Wide Field Camera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescop

This paper examines changes in the distribution of wages using bounds to allow for the impact of non-random selection into work. We show that worst case bounds can be informative. However, since employment rates in the UK are often low they are not informative about changes in educational or gender wage differentials. Thus we explore ways to tighten these bounds using restrictions motivated from economic theory. With these assumptions we find convincing evidence of an increase in inequality within education groups, changes in educational differentials and increases in the relative wages of women. * Acknowledgments: We would like to thank three anonymous referees, Jaap Abbring, Daron Acemoglou,

This paper uses microeconomic data from the U.K. Family Expenditure Surveys (FES) and the General Household Surveys (GHS) to describe and explain changes in the distribution of male wages. Since the late 1970s wage inequality has risen very fast in the U.K., and this rise is characterized both by increasing education and age differentials. We show that a large part of the changes in the U.K. can be summarized quite simply as increases in eduction differentials and a decline of growth of entry level wages which persist subsequently. This fact we interpret as cohort effects. We also show that, like in the U.S., an important aspect of rising wage inequality is increased within-group wage dispersion. Finally we use the GHS to evaluate the role of alternative education measures.