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The U.K. as a Technological Follower: Higher Education Expansion and the College Wage Premium

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  • Richard Blundell
  • David A Green
  • Wenchao Jin

Abstract

The proportion of U.K. people with university degrees tripled between 1993 and 2015. However, over the same period the time trend in the college wage premium has been extraordinarily flat. We show that these patterns cannot be explained by composition changes. Instead, we present a model in which firms choose between centralized and decentralized organizational forms and demonstrate that it can explain the main patterns. We also show the model has implications that differentiate it from both the exogenous skill-biased technological change model and the endogenous invention model, and that U.K. data fit with those implications. The result is a consistent picture of the transformation of the U.K. labour market in the last two decades.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Blundell & David A Green & Wenchao Jin, 2022. "The U.K. as a Technological Follower: Higher Education Expansion and the College Wage Premium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 142-180.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:89:y:2022:i:1:p:142-180.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Jonas Loebbing, 2020. "Redistributive Income Taxation with Directed Technical Change," CESifo Working Paper Series 8743, CESifo.
    3. David A. Green, 2023. "Basic income and the labour market: Labour supply, precarious work and technological change," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(4), pages 1195-1220, November.
    4. Attila Lindner & Balazs Murakozy & Balazs Reizer & Ragnhild Schreiner, 2022. "Firm-level technological change and skill demand," CEP Discussion Papers dp1857, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Burdett, Ashley & Etheridge, Ben & Tang, Li & Wang, Yikai, 2024. "Worker productivity during Covid-19 and adaptation to working from home," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    6. Argan, Damiano & Gary-Bobo, Robert & Goussé, Marion, 2023. "Is there a devaluation of degrees ? Unobserved heterogeneity in returns to education and early experience," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2304, CEPREMAP.

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