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Product Market Competition, Returns to Skill and Wage Inequality

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Guadalupe, Maria

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Abstract

This Paper shows that increasing product market competition can have a direct impact on the employment relationship and on wage inequality. I develop a simple model in which an increase in product market competition increases returns to skill through the effect of competition on the sensitivity of profits to cost reductions. I then show empirically that the dispersion of wages increase with competition using a large panel of United Kingdom workers with complete work histories. I identify the impact of competition on returns to skill in the panel, using two exogenous measures of competition provided by two quasi-natural experiments. Quantile regressions indicate that increased competition also raised returns to unobserved ability.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 4434.

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Date of creation: Jun 2004
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4434

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Related research
Keywords: product market competition; returns to skill; wage structure;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Philippon, Thomas & Reshef, Ariell, 2009. "Wages and Human Capital in the U.S. Financial Industry: 1909-2006," CEPR Discussion Papers 7282, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Cuñat, Vicente & Guadalupe, Maria, 2006. "Globalization and the Provision of Incentives Inside the Firm," CEPR Discussion Papers 5950, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Gabriele CARDULLO, 2009. "The Distributive and Welfare Effects of Product and Labour Market Deregulation," Discussion Papers (IRES - Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales) 2009007, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES). [Downloadable!]
  4. Thomas Philippon & Ariell Reshef, 2009. "Wages and Human Capital in the U.S. Financial Industry: 1909-2006," NBER Working Papers 14644, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Jirjahn, Uwe & Kraft, Kornelius, 2008. "Teamwork and Intra-Firm Wage Dispersion among Blue-Collar Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 3291, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  6. Natália Pimenta Monteiro, 2007. "Regulatory reform and labour earnings in Portuguese banking," NIPE Working Papers 7/2007, NIPE - Universidade do Minho. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Vicente Cuñat & Maria Guadalupe, 2009. "Globalization and the Provision of Incentives inside the Firm: The Effect of Foreign Competition," Economics Working Papers 1134, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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