IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v15y2023i1p240-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Skilled Labor Productivity and Cross-Country Income Differences

Author

Listed:
  • Lutz Hendricks
  • Todd Schoellman

Abstract

This paper revisits the question of how allowing for imperfect substitution among workers with different skill levels affects the results of development accounting. We consider a range of models that nest the approaches in the literature and calibrate them to a common set of moments, including particularly evidence on the wage gains of migrants. We obtain two main results. First, human capital accounts for between one-half and three-fourths of cross-country income gaps. Second, human capital accounts for only modest variation in the relative productivity of skilled versus unskilled labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Lutz Hendricks & Todd Schoellman, 2023. "Skilled Labor Productivity and Cross-Country Income Differences," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 240-268, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:15:y:2023:i:1:p:240-68
    DOI: 10.1257/mac.20200256
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20200256
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E146901V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20200256.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20200256.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mac.20200256?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jan Trenczek & Konstantin M. Wacker, 2023. "Accounting for cross-country output differences: A sectoral CES perspective," Working Papers 2023.09, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.

    More about this item

    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
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    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:aea:aejmac:v:15:y:2023:i:1:p:240-68. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.