Skill Premium, Labor Supply and Changes in the Structure of Wages in Latin America

Manuel Fernandez Sierra and Julian Messina

No 10718, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Earnings inequality declined rapidly in Argentina, Brazil and Chile during the 2000s. A reduction in the experience premium is a fundamental driver of declines in upper-tail (90/50) inequality, while a decline in the education premium is the primary determinant of the evolution of lower-tail (50/10) inequality. Relative labor supply is important for explaining changes in the skill premiums. Relative demand trends favored high-skilled workers during the 1990s, shifting in favor of low-skilled workers during the 2000s. Changes in the minimum wage, and more importantly, commodity-led terms of trade improvements are key factors behind these relative skill demand trends.

Keywords: earnings inequality; unconditional quantile regressions; supply-demand framework; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J20 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lam and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published - published in: Journal of Development Economics, 2018, 135, 555-573

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp10718.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Skill premium, labor supply, and changes in the structure of wages in Latin America (2018)
Working Paper: Skill Premium, Labor Supply and Changes in the Structure of Wages in Latin America (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10718

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
library@iza.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte (hinte@iza.org).