In analysing the impact of education on wage differentials and wage growth, we use next to personal characteristics (e.g. education) also job characteristics (e.g. skills required) to explain wages. We estimate wage equations on individual data for the Netherlands, 1986 – 1998. It turns out those personal characteristics like education and experience explain only about 50 percent of the variation in wages. The other half is explained by variation in job characteristics. Moreover, the increasing educational attainment, which is widely thought to enhance productivity growth, is countered both by an increasing level of skills required for each job and by overschooling. Thus a plausible explanation for the productivity slow-down since the mid-eighties is provided.
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Paper provided by Maastricht : MERIT, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology in its series Research Memoranda with number
029.