The Changing Roles of Education and Ability in Wage Determination

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Castex, Gonzalo; Dechter, Evgenia Kogan
• 署名单位: Central Bank of Chile; University of New South Wales Sydney
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/676018
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 685-710
• 关键词: technological-change; technical change; labor-market; INEQUALITY; college; skills; return; INVESTMENT; premium; choices

摘要

This study examines changes in returns to formal education and cognitive skills over the past 20 years using the 1979 and 1997 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We show that cognitive skills had a 30%-50% larger effect on wages in the 1980s than in the 2000s. Returns to education were higher in the 2000s. These developments are not explained by changing distributions of workers' observable characteristics or by changing labor market structure. We show that the decline in returns to ability can be attributed to differences in the growth rate of technology between the 1980s and 2000s.