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Skilled Labor (skilled + labor)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting83%

Selected Abstracts

THE DOUBLE ROLE OF SKILLED LABOR, NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND WAGE INEQUALITY

METROECONOMICA, Issue 1 2005
Hartmut Egger
ABSTRACT We examine the relationship between the supply of skilled labor, technological change and relative wages. In accounting for the role of skilled labor in both production activities and productivity- enhancing ,support' activities we derive the following results. First, an increase in the supply of skilled labor raises the employment share of non-production labor within firms, without lowering relative wages. Second, new technologies raise wage inequality only in so far as they give incentives to firms to reallocate skilled labor towards non-production activities. In contrast, skill-biased technological change of the sort usually considered in the literature does not affect wage inequality. [source]

Capital-skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Macroeconomic Analysis

ECONOMETRICA, Issue 5 2000
Per Krusell
The supply and price of skilled labor relative to unskilled labor have changed dramatically over the postwar period. The relative quantity of skilled labor has increased substantially, and the skill premium, which is the wage of skilled labor relative to that of unskilled labor, has grown significantly since 1980. Many studies have found that accounting for the increase in the skill premium on the basis of observable variables is difficult and have concluded implicitly that latent skill-biased technological change must be the main factor responsible. This paper examines that view systematically. We develop a framework that provides a simple, explicit economic mechanism for understanding skill-biased technological change in terms of observable variables, and we use the framework to evaluate the fraction of variation in the skill premium that can be accounted for by changes in observed factor quantities. We find that with capital-skill complementarity, changes in observed inputs alone can account for most of the variations in the skill premium over the last 30 years. [source]

Cities, Skills, and Inequality

GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2005
CHRISTOPHER H. WHEELER
ABSTRACT The surge in U.S. wage inequality over the past several decades is now commonly attributed to an increase in the returns paid to skill. Although theories differ with respect to why, specifically, this increase has come about, many agree that it is strongly tied to the increase in the relative supply of skilled (i.e., highly educated) workers in the U.S. labor market. A greater supply of skilled labor, for example, may have induced skill-biased technological change or generated greater stratification of workers by skill across firms or jobs. Given that metropolitan areas in the U.S. have long possessed more educated populations than non-metropolitan areas, these theories suggest that the rise in both the returns to skill and wage inequality should have been particularly pronounced in cities. Evidence from the U.S. Census over the period of 1950 to 1990 supports both implications. [source]

THE DOUBLE ROLE OF SKILLED LABOR, NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND WAGE INEQUALITY

METROECONOMICA, Issue 1 2005
Hartmut Egger
ABSTRACT We examine the relationship between the supply of skilled labor, technological change and relative wages. In accounting for the role of skilled labor in both production activities and productivity- enhancing ,support' activities we derive the following results. First, an increase in the supply of skilled labor raises the employment share of non-production labor within firms, without lowering relative wages. Second, new technologies raise wage inequality only in so far as they give incentives to firms to reallocate skilled labor towards non-production activities. In contrast, skill-biased technological change of the sort usually considered in the literature does not affect wage inequality. [source]

Skill Premium, Biased Technological Change and Income Differences

CHINA AND WORLD ECONOMY, Issue 6 2009
Wei Zou
D24; D33; O14 Abstract Using 1987,2006 panel data for China, we explore the dynamics of the skill premium. The present paper focuses on the skill premium as an explanation for why income differences are so large in China. Our empirics show that: the rise in the relative supply of skilled labor results in an increase, instead of a decrease, in the skill premium; domestic investment is not complementary with skill formation; the skillpremium is higher in more developed provinces; economic openness facilitates an increase in the skill premium; whether foreign direct investment induces skill-based technology change or not, it drives up the skillpremium. An array of policy prescriptions for reducing income differences and ensuring sustained economic growth are provided. [source]