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Investment-Specific Technological Change, Skill Accumulation, and Wage Inequality

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Author Info
Hui He (University of Hawaii)
Zheng Liu (Emory University)

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Abstract

Wage inequality between education groups in the United States has increased substantially since the early 1980s. The relative number of college-educated workers has also increased dramatically in the postwar period. This paper presents a unified framework where the dynamics of both skill accumulation and wage inequality arise as an equilibrium outcome driven by measured investment-specific technological change. Working through equipment-skill complementarity and endogenous skill accumulation, the model does well in capturing the steady growth in the relative quantity of skilled labor during the postwar period and the substantial rise in wage inequality after the early 1980s. Based on the calibrated model, we examine the quantitative effects of some hypothetical tax-policy reforms on skill accumulation, wage inequality, and welfare. (Copyright: Elsevier)

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File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2007.08.003
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Publisher Info
Article provided by Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics in its journal Review of Economic Dynamics.

Volume (Year): 11 (2008)
Issue (Month): 2 (April)
Pages: 314-334
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Handle: RePEc:red:issued:06-160

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Related research
Keywords: Skill premium Skill accumulation Investment-specific technological change Capital-skill complementarity

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
O33 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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    Other versions:
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    Other versions:
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  22. James J. Heckman & Lance Lochner & Christopher Taber, 1998. "Explaining Rising Wage Inequality: Explorations with a Dynamic General Equilibrium Model of Labor Earnings with Heterogeneous Agents," NBER Working Papers 6384, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Kevin X.D. Huang & Zheng Liu & Tao Zha, 2008. "Learning, adaptive expectations, and technology shocks," Working Paper Series 2008-18, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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