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Wage inequality and unemployment with overeducation

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Abstract

A skill-biased change in technology can account at once for the changes observed in a number of important variables of the US labour market between 1970 and 1990. These include the increasing inequality in wages, both between and within education groups, and the increase in unemployment at all levels of education. In contrast, in previous literature this type of technology shock cannot account for all of these changes. The paper uses a matching model with a segmented labour market, an imperfect correlation between individual ability and education, and a fixed cost of setting up a job. The endogenous increase in overeducation is key to understand the response of unemployment to the technology shock.

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  • Xavier Cuadras Morató & Xavier Mateos-Planas, 2006. "Wage inequality and unemployment with overeducation," Economics Working Papers 938, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:938
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    2. García Ramos, Yboon & Flores-Bazán, Fabian & Nicolas Hadjisavvas, 2017. "About the sum of quasiconvex functions," Working Papers 17-07, Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; wage premium; overeducation; SBTC;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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