IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v68y2018icp435-449.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Population growth and the wage skill premium

Author

Listed:
  • Neves, Pedro Cunha
  • Afonso, Óscar
  • Sequeira, Tiago Neves

Abstract

We develop a general equilibrium directed technical change model with growth of skilled and unskilled labour in order to analyse the effect of heterogeneous population growth on the skill premium. Heterogeneous population growth generates a non-monotonic and non-linear relationship between the skill premium and the demographic variables, which may help explain different conflicting patterns of the skill premium across history and amongst countries. In a quantitative exercise on the US economy for almost all the 20th century, we show that the model can replicate the observed data on skill premium. We extend the quantitative exercise to consider that the R&D productivity depends on population ageing and this improved the fit of the replication of the skill-premium pattern.

Suggested Citation

  • Neves, Pedro Cunha & Afonso, Óscar & Sequeira, Tiago Neves, 2018. "Population growth and the wage skill premium," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 435-449.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:68:y:2018:i:c:p:435-449
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2017.08.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026499931730278X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2017.08.019?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klaus Prettner, 2013. "Population aging and endogenous economic growth," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 811-834, April.
    2. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Günther Fink, 2010. "Implications of population ageing for economic growth," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(4), pages 583-612, Winter.
    3. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Cross-Country Inequality Trends," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 121-149, February.
    4. Eris, Mehmet, 2010. "Population heterogeneity and growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1211-1222, September.
    5. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    6. David Card & Thomas Lemieux, 2001. "Can Falling Supply Explain the Rising Return to College for Younger Men? A Cohort-Based Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 705-746.
    7. Grossmann, Volker & Steger, Thomas & Trimborn, Timo, 2013. "Dynamically optimal R&D subsidization," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 516-534.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2001. "Productivity Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(2), pages 563-606.
    9. Yunus Aksoy & Henrique S. Basso & Ron P. Smith & Tobias Grasl, 2019. "Demographic Structure and Macroeconomic Trends," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 193-222, January.
    10. Sushanta K. MALLICK & Ricardo M. SOUSA, 2017. "The skill premium effect of technological change: New evidence from United States manufacturing," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 156(1), pages 113-131, March.
    11. Jutta Bolt & Jan Luiten Zanden, 2014. "The Maddison Project: collaborative research on historical national accounts," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 627-651, August.
    12. Lombardo, Giovanni & Ravenna, Federico, 2012. "The size of the tradable and non-tradable sectors: Evidence from input–output tables for 25 countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 558-561.
    13. Daniel Fernandez Kranz, 2006. "Why has wage inequality increased more in the USA than in Europe? An empirical investigation of the demand and supply of skill," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(7), pages 771-788.
    14. Peng, Fei & Anwar, Sajid & Kang, Lili, 2017. "New technology and old institutions: An empirical analysis of the skill-biased demand for older workers in Europe," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-19.
    15. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Sevilla, Jaypee, 2004. "The Effect of Health on Economic Growth: A Production Function Approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 1-13, January.
    16. Daron Acemoglu, 1998. "Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1055-1089.
    17. Furman, Jeffrey L. & Porter, Michael E. & Stern, Scott, 2002. "The determinants of national innovative capacity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 899-933, August.
    18. Hui He & Zheng Liu, 2008. "Investment-Specific Technological Change, Skill Accumulation, and Wage Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(2), pages 314-334, April.
    19. Benjamin F. Jones, 2010. "Age and Great Invention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 1-14, February.
    20. Lee, Jong-Wha & Lee, Hanol, 2016. "Human capital in the long run," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 147-169.
    21. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Directed Technical Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 781-809.
    22. Choi, Ki-Hong & Shin, Sungwhee, 2015. "Population aging, economic growth, and the social transmission of human capital: An analysis with an overlapping generations model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 138-147.
    23. Jones, Charles I, 1995. "R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 759-784, August.
    24. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel, 2015. "Editor's Choice Very Long-Run Discount Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 1-53.
    25. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M & Pierce, Brooks, 1993. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 410-442, June.
    26. Elgin, Ceyhun & Tumen, Semih, 2012. "Can sustained economic growth and declining population coexist?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 1899-1908.
    27. Rui Leite & Óscar Afonso, 2008. "Effects of Learning-by-doing, technology-adoption costs and wage inequality," FEP Working Papers 272, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    28. Buiter, Willem H, 1988. "Death, Birth, Productivity Growth and Debt Neutrality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(391), pages 279-293, June.
    29. Robertson, Raymond, 2004. "Relative prices and wage inequality: evidence from Mexico," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 387-409, December.
    30. Böhm, Sebastian & Grossmann, Volker & Steger, Thomas M., 2015. "Does expansion of higher education lead to trickle-down growth?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 79-94.
    31. Bound, John & Johnson, George, 1992. "Changes in the Structure of Wages in the 1980's: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 371-392, June.
    32. Schäfer, Andreas, 2014. "Technological change, population dynamics, and natural resource depletion," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 122-136.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Silvia Vannutelli & Sergio Scicchitano & Marco Biagetti, 2022. "Routine-biased technological change and wage inequality: do workers’ perceptions matter?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 12(3), pages 409-450, September.
    2. Luca Spinesi, 2022. "The Environmental Tax: Effects on Inequality and Growth," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 82(3), pages 529-572, July.
    3. Lankisch, Clemens & Prettner, Klaus & Prskawetz, Alexia, 2019. "How can robots affect wage inequality?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 161-169.
    4. Abeliansky, Ana Lucia & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada & Prettner, Klaus, 2020. "3D printing, international trade, and FDI," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 288-306.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Afonso, Óscar & Thompson, Maria, 2011. "Costly investment, complementarities and the skill premium," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 2254-2262, September.
    2. Afonso, Oscar & Leite, Rui, 2010. "Learning-by-doing, technology-adoption costs and wage inequality," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1069-1078, September.
    3. Oscar Afonso & Tiago Sequeira, 2020. "Tradable and nontradable directed technical change," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(36), pages 3874-3897, July.
    4. Afonso, Oscar & Gil, Pedro Mazeda, 2013. "Effects of North–South trade on wage inequality and on human-capital accumulation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 481-492.
    5. Oscar Afonso, 2010. "Growth And Wage Inequality In A Scale‐Independent Model With R&D And Human‐Capital Accumulation," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 78(2), pages 149-182, March.
    6. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    7. Afonso, Oscar, 2008. "The impact of government intervention on wage inequality without scale effects," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 351-362, March.
    8. Tiago Neves Sequeira & Óscar Afonso, 2020. "Wage Inequality and Lobbying: a directed technical change approach," CeBER Working Papers 2020-05, Centre for Business and Economics Research (CeBER), University of Coimbra.
    9. Afonso, Oscar, 2023. "Inflation, technological-knowledge bias, and wages," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 91-103.
    10. Anna Sabadash, 2013. "ICT-induced Technological Progress and Employment: A Literature Review," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2013-07, Joint Research Centre.
    11. Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2023. "Rising Longevity, Increasing the Retirement Age, and the Consequences for Knowledge‐based Long‐run Growth," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(357), pages 39-64, January.
    12. Zeira, Joseph, 2007. "Wage inequality, technology, and trade," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 79-103, November.
    13. Anna Sabadash, 2013. "ICT-induced Technological Progress and Employment: a Happy Marriage or a Dangerous Liaison? A Literature Review," JRC Research Reports JRC76143, Joint Research Centre.
    14. Fatih Guvenen & Burhanettin Kuruscu, 2010. "A Quantitative Analysis of the Evolution of the US Wage Distribution, 1970–2000," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 227-276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Jerzmanowski, Michal & Tamura, Robert, 2019. "Directed technological change & cross-country income differences: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    16. Walde, Klaus, 2000. "Egalitarian and elitist education systems as the basis for international differences in wage inequality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 445-468, September.
    17. Nico Voigtlaender, 2009. "Many Sectors Meet More Skills: Intersectoral Linkages and the Skill Bias of Technology," 2009 Meeting Papers 1136, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Cross-Country Inequality Trends," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 121-149, February.
    19. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2005. "Trends in U. S. Wage Inequality: Re-Assessing the Revisionists," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2095, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    20. Crifo, Patricia, 2008. "Skill supply and biased technical change," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 812-830, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Population growth; Endogenous economic growth; Skill premium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:eee:ecmode:v:68:y:2018:i:c:p:435-449. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    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.