Wage and Test Score Dispersion: Some International Evidence

Christopher Ferrall and Kelly Bedard ()

No 156, LIS Working papers from LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg

Abstract: This paper includes fifty observations on wage distributions across eleven countries and two age cohorts defined by international mathematics tests given to thirteen-year-olds in 1962 and 1982. It is found that wage dispersion later in life is never greater than test score dispersion. In particular, Lorenz curves for a cohorts wages always lie above or on top of the cohorts test score Lorenz curve. Wage dispersion, as summarized by Gini coefficients, is significantly related to test score dispersion and union density in the country. A general fall in test score dispersion between 1962 and 1982 appears to be reflected in reduced wage dispersion. For three countries with available data (the U.S., the U. K., and Japan), evidence of skill-based changes in wage dispersion between the early 1970s and the late 1980s is found.

Pages: 26 pages
Date: 1997-04
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Economics of Education Review 22, no. 1 (February 2003): 31-43

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/156.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Wage and test score dispersion: some international evidence (2003)
Working Paper: Wage and Test Score Dispersion Some International Evidence (1997)
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:lis:liswps:156

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIS Working papers from LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Piotr Paradowski ().