The UK as a Technological Follower: Higher Education Expansion and the College Wage Premium

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blundell, Richard; Green, David A.; Jin, Wenchao
• 署名单位: University of London; University College London; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of British Columbia
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdab034
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 142-180
• 关键词: division-of-labor; Skilled labor; returns; PRODUCTIVITY; ORGANIZATION; EMPLOYMENT; demand; british; COSTS; BIAS

摘要

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.