IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/has/bworkp/0203.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Two Phases of Labor Market Transition in Hungary: Inter-Sectoral Reallocation and Skill-Biased Technological Change

Author

Listed:
  • Gabor Kezdi

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

Hungary has been a front-runner in the transition to capitalism. It has also experienced exceptionally radical changes in employment and relative wages. One main feature of these changes is an enormous increase in the returns to skill. This paper argues that it is instructive to divide the process into two periods, divided by around the year 1995. The first period experienced major destruction of low-skilled jobs and large inter-sectoral reallocation, partly toward skill-intensive industries. Employment started to rebound in the second period, which has also seen a pervasive skill upgrade in all sectors. The skill premium in earnings started to grow even faster in the second stage because increasing demand for skill met a more and more inelastic supply in the short run. Long-run supply effects have been, however, strong as college enrollment rates soared. Introduction of new (foreign) capital seems to be a major factor behind increasing demand for skill. Foreign direct investment into Hungary was by far the largest among the transition countries until the late 1990's, but other Central-Eastern European countries started to catch up since. This suggests that the Hungarian experience might be helpful to predict labor market trends in other transition economies, especially those that attract significant foreign capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabor Kezdi, 2002. "Two Phases of Labor Market Transition in Hungary: Inter-Sectoral Reallocation and Skill-Biased Technological Change," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 0203, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:has:bworkp:0203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.core.hu/doc/bwp/bwp/bwp0203.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    2. László Halpern & Gábor Körösi, 2001. "Efficiency and market share in the Hungarian corporate sector," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 9(3), pages 559-592, November.
    3. Eli Bekman & John Bound & Stephen Machin, 1998. "Implications of Skill-Biased Technological Change: International Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1245-1279.
    4. Griliches, Zvi & Hausman, Jerry A., 1986. "Errors in variables in panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 93-118, February.
    5. Gabor Kertesi & Janos Kollo, 2001. "Economic transformation and the revaluation of human capital - Hungary, 1986-1999," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 0104, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    6. Arpad Abraham & Gabor Kezdi, 2000. "Long-run trends in earnings and employment in Hungary, 1972-1996," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 0002, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hajnalka Tarjani, 2005. "Estimating some labour market implications of skill biased technology change and imports in Hungary," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0508, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    2. Aleksandra Parteka, 2012. "Skilled-Unskilled Wage Gap Versus Evolving Trade And Labour Market Structures in the EU," Working Papers 1204, Instytut Rozwoju, Institute for Development.
    3. Fazekas, Károly, 2005. "Transition of the Hungarian Labour Market: Age, Skill and Regional Differences," Discussion Paper 241, Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2001. "Productivity Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 563-606.
    2. Sakurai, Kojiro, 2001. "Biased Technological Change and Japanese Manufacturing Employment," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 298-322, September.
    3. Meschi, Elena & Taymaz, Erol & Vivarelli, Marco, 2011. "Trade, technology and skills: Evidence from Turkish microdata," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 60-70.
    4. Dupuy, Arnaud & Marey, Philip S., 2008. "Shifts and twists in the relative productivity of skilled labor," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 718-735, June.
    5. Lex Borghans & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "Understanding the Technology of Computer Technology Diffusion: Explaining Computer Adoption Patterns and Implications for the Wage Structure," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 17(3-4), pages 37-70, September.
    6. William F. Blankenau & Steven P. Cassou, 2009. "Industrial Dynamics And The Neoclassical Growth Model," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 815-837, October.
    7. Borghans, Lex & Weel, Bas ter, 2001. "What happens when agent T gets a computer?," Research Memorandum 017, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    8. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    9. Antonio Avalos & Andreas Savvides, 2006. "The Manufacturing Wage Inequality in Latin America and East Asia: Openness, Technology Transfer, and Labor Supply," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 553-576, November.
    10. Robert Feenstra & Gordon Hanson, 2001. "Global Production Sharing and Rising Inequality: A Survey of Trade and Wages," NBER Working Papers 8372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Robert C. Feenstra, 2000. "Introduction to "The Impact of International Trade on Wages"," NBER Chapters, in: The Impact of International Trade on Wages, pages 1-11, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Baltagi, Badi H. & Rich, Daniel P., 2005. "Skill-biased technical change in US manufacturing: a general index approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 549-570, June.
    13. Green, Francis & Dickerson, Andy & Saba Arbache, Jorge, 2001. "A Picture of Wage Inequality and the Allocation of Labor Through a Period of Trade Liberalization: The Case of Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1923-1939, November.
    14. Jorge Saba Arbache, 2001. "Trade Liberalisation and Labor Markets in Developing Countries: Theory and Evidence," Studies in Economics 0112, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    15. Edward P. Lazear, 2019. "Productivity and Wages: Common Factors and Idiosyncrasies Across Countries and Industries," NBER Working Papers 26428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. René Morissette & Feng Hou, 2008. "Does the labour supply of wives respond to husbands' wages? Canadian evidence from micro data and grouped data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(4), pages 1185-1210, November.
    17. Gallego, Francisco A., 2012. "Skill Premium in Chile: Studying Skill Upgrading in the South," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 594-609.
    18. Eric D Gould, 2019. "Explaining the Unexplained: Residual Wage Inequality, Manufacturing Decline and Low-skilled Immigration," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1281-1326.
    19. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Cross-Country Inequality Trends," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 121-149, February.
    20. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen, 2000. "Understanding Increasing and Decreasing Wage Inequality," NBER Chapters, in: The Impact of International Trade on Wages, pages 227-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:has:bworkp:0203. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nora Horvath (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iehashu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.