 How do Economic Reforms affect the Structure of Wages? The Case of Brazilian Manufacturing, 1984-1996Studies in Economics from School of Economics, University of Kent Abstract: One of the established findings in the literature on inter-industry wage differentials is the long-term stability of the wage structure. In this paper, we examine how market-oriented and other economic reforms undertaken by an industrialising country affect the dispersion and structure of wages. Using a large, individual-level dataset, we find that the labour market is highly responsive to the economic reforms undertaken in Brazil in the early 1990s. Wage dispersion falls dramatically just after the implementation of economic reforms and we find evidence that the wage structure is under transition after the changes. Human capital variables gain importance in the explanation of wage differentials, while industry affiliation and institutional characteristics become less important. This finding is consistent with the labour market being flexible enough to adapt to the new economic conditions, and becoming more competitive as a result of the economic reforms. Keywords: Economic reforms; wage structure; wage dispersion; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:9817 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Studies in Economics from School of Economics, University of Kent School of Economics, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7FS. |
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