Wage inequality and structural change

Joanna Tyrowicz and Magdalena Smyk

No 8, GRAPE Working Papers from GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics

Abstract: Income inequality in the context of large structural change has received a lot of attention in the literature, but most studies relied on household post-transfer inequality measures. This study utilizes a novel and fairly comprehensive collection of micro datasets between 1980s and 2010 for both advanced market economies and economies undergoing transition from central planning to market based system. We show that earned income inequality was initially lower in transition economies and immediately upon the change of the economic system surpassed the levels observed in advanced economies. We decompose changes in wage inequality into parts that can be attributed to changes in characteristics (mainly education) and changes in rewards, but did not find any leading factor. Finally, in the context of skill-biased technological change literature we find a very weak link between structural changes and wages in both advanced and post-transition economies. %This holds regardless of whether an economy has underwent a large structural shock or not.

Keywords: wage inequality; structural change; transition; skill biased technological change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 E24 N34 O57 P36 P51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino, nep-mac and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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http://grape.org.pl/WP/8_SmykTyrowicz_website.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Wage Inequality and Structural Change (2019)
Working Paper: Wage Inequality and structural change (2018)
Working Paper: Wage Inequality and Structural Change (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fme:wpaper:8

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