In this article we present a model with two levels of skills and two classes of goods, one produced with a technology requiring high skills, the other produced with a technology that can be operated by both low and high skilled workers. In this model skill biased technical change causes a drop in the demand for low skilled workers. The model, however, generates two distinct labour market regimes. In one regime we show skill biased technical change causes wage divergence between skilled and unskilled workers. In the alternative regime a reallocation of labour prevents such wage responses. Introducing labour market institutions through a bargaining process endogenises labour supply. This leads to three possible labour market regimes and shows that skill biased technical change always causes wage divergence but wage responses are moderated by higher unemployment of low skilled workers.
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Paper provided by Maastricht : MERIT, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology in its series Research Memoranda with number
019.
References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Benabou, R., 1996.
"Inequality and Growth,"
Working Papers
96-22, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
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