Skill Premium and Technological Change in the Very Long Run: 1300-1914

Rui Luo ()

No 17/09, Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester

Abstract: This paper sets out to explain the historical development of the skill premium in western Europe over a period ranging from the pre-modern era to the modern era (circa 1300 to 1914). We develop a model of the skill premium and technological change over the very long run which endogenously accounts for the transition across different growth regimes in this period. The model integrates two key elements in long-run growth, the human capital investment and the capital-human capital ratio, into the analysis and successfully explains the declining skill premium from 1300 to 1600 and the stable skill premium from 1600 to 1914. The explanation elucidates a number of well-known historical facts that have not been previously examined in the study of the skill premium.

Keywords: skill premium; technological change; human capital investment; capital-human capital ratio; growth regimes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 O11 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.le.ac.uk/economics/research/RePEc/lec/leecon/dp17-09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:lec:leecon:17/09

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www2.le.ac.u ... -1/discussion-papers

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester School of Business, University of Leicester, University Road. Leicester. LE1 7RH. UK Provider-Homepage: https://le.ac.uk/school-of-business. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Abbie Sleath ().