Wages, Human Capital, and Barriers to Structural Transformation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Herrendorf, Berthold; Schoellman, Todd
• 署名单位: Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Minneapolis
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20160236
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 1-23
• 关键词: productivity differences; Aggregate productivity; GROWTH; agriculture; preferences; countries; ECONOMY; facts; MODEL; gap

摘要

We document for 13 countries ranging from rich (Canada, United States) to poor (India, Indonesia) that average wages are considerably lower in agriculture than in the other sectors. Moreover, agriculture has less educated workers and lower Mincer returns. We view these findings through. the lens of a multi-sector model in which workers differ in observed and unobserved characteristics and sectors differ in their human-capital intensities. We derive expressions for the implied harriers to the reallocation of labor out of agriculture. We find that in our sample these barriers are considerably smaller than what the macro-development literature has argued.