Educational upgrading and returns to skills in Latin America: evidence from a supply–demand framework

Pablo Acosta, Guillermo Cruces, Sebastian Galiani and Leonardo Gasparini

Latin American Economic Review, 2019, vol. 28, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: Abstract This paper documents the evolution of wage differentials and the supply of workers by educational level for sixteen Latin American countries over the period 1991–2013. We find a pattern of rather constant rise in the relative supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers over the period. Whereas the returns to secondary education fell over time, in contrast, the returns to tertiary education display a remarkable changing pattern common to almost all economies: significant increase in the 1990s, strong fall in the 2000s, and a deceleration of that fall in the 2010s. We conclude that supply-side factors seem to have limited explanatory power relative to demand-side factors in accounting for changes in the wage gap between workers with tertiary education and the rest.

Keywords: Returns to skills; Latin America; Inequality; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Working Paper: Educational Upgrading and Returns to Skills in Latin America: Evidence from a Supply-Demand Framework (2017)
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DOI: 10.1186/s40503-019-0080-6

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