Education, Signaling, and Wage Inequality in a Dynamic Economy
Abstract
Many empirical works suggest that education has a positive effect on earnings not only because it raises human capital but also because it functions as a signal when employers have incomplete information on employees' skills. The signaling role could have important consequences on the dynamics of education, wages, and wage distribution when there exist intergenerational linkages in educational decisions. This paper examines the dynamic effects in an economy where education has the dual roles and some fraction of individuals is credit constrained from taking education. In particular, it investigates how the number of educated individuals, the importance of the signaling value of education, and the wage inequality between educated and uneducated workers change over time in such economy, and compares the dynamics with those when education does not function as a signal. It also examines whether the signaling role leads to higher aggregate consumption or not in the long run.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 16982.Length:
Date of creation: Jul 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:16982
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Schackstr. 4, D-80539 Munich, Germany
Phone: +49-(0)89-2180-2219
Fax: +49-(0)89-2180-3900
Web page: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: Human capital; Education; Signaling; Statistical discrimination; Credit constraint;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- O11 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
- I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
- O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-09-05 (All new papers)
- NEP-CTA-2009-09-05 (Contract Theory & Applications)
- NEP-EDU-2009-09-05 (Education)
- NEP-HRM-2009-09-05 (Human Capital & Human Resource Management)
- NEP-LAB-2009-09-05 (Labour Economics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Galindo-Rueda, Fernando, 2003.
"Employer Learning and Schooling-Related Statistical Discrimination in Britain,"
IZA Discussion Papers
778, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Fernando Galindo-Rueda, 2003. "Employer Learning and Schooling-Related Statistical Discrimination in Britain," CEE Discussion Papers 0031, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
- Galindo-Rueda, Fernando, 2003. "Employer Learning and Schooling-Related Statistical Discrimination in Britain," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 82, Royal Economic Society.
- Kelly Bedard, .
"Human Capital Versus Signaling Models: University Access and High School Drop-outs,"
Canadian International Labour Network Working Papers
19, McMaster University.
- Kelly Bedard, 2001. "Human Capital versus Signaling Models: University Access and High School Dropouts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 749-775, August.
- Kelly Bedard, . "Human Capital Versus Signaling Models: University Access and High School Drop-outs," Claremont Colleges Working Papers 1999-01, Claremont Colleges.
- Joseph G. Altonji & Charles R. Pierret, 1997.
"Employer Learning and Statistical Discrimination,"
NBER Working Papers
6279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Joseph G. Altonji & Charles R. Pierret, 2001. "Employer Learning And Statistical Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(1), pages 313-350, February.
- Joseph G. Altonji & Charles R. Pierret, 1997. "Employer learning and statistical discrimination," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues WP-97-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
- Joseph G. Altonji & Charles R. Pierret, . "Employer Learning and Statistical Discrimination," IPR working papers 97-18, Institute for Policy Resarch at Northwestern University.
- Chevalier, Arnaud & Harmon, Colm & Walker, Ian & Zhu, Yu, 2003.
"Does Education Raise Productivity or Just Reflect It?,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
3993, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Arnaud Chevalier & Colm Harmon & Ian Walker & Yu Zhu, 2004. "Does Education Raise Productivity, or Just Reflect it?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(499), pages F499-F517, November.
- Arnaud Chevalier & Colm Harmon & Ian Walker & Yu Zhu, 2003. "Does education raise productivity, or just reflect it?," Working Papers 200304, School Of Economics, University College Dublin.
- Kazuhiro Yuki, 2005.
"Sectoral Shift, Wealth Distribution, and Development,"
Development and Comp Systems
0509001, EconWPA.
- Yuki, Kazuhiro, 2008. "Sectoral Shift, Wealth Distribution, And Development," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(04), pages 527-559, September.
- Yuki, Kazuhiro, 2007. "Sectoral Shift, Wealth Distribution, and Development," MPRA Paper 3384, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Ljungqvist, Lars, 1993. "Economic underdevelopment : The case of a missing market for human capital," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 219-239, April.
- Igal Hendel & Joel Shapiro & Paul Willen, 2003.
"Educational Opportunity and Income Inequality,"
Working Papers
89, Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.
- Hendel, Igal & Shapiro, Joel & Willen, Paul, 2005. "Educational opportunity and income inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 841-870, June.
- Paul Willen & Igal Hendel & Joel Shapiro, 2004. "Educational Opportunity and Income Inequality," NBER Working Papers 10879, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Igal Hendel & Joel Shapiro & Paul Willen, 2004. "Educational opportunity and income inequality," Public Policy Discussion Paper 04-5, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
- Ulla Hämäläinen & Roope Uusitalo, 2008. "Signalling or Human Capital: Evidence from the Finnish Polytechnic School Reform," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(4), pages 755-775, December.
- Galor, Oded & Zeira, Joseph, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52, January.
- Yuki, Kazuhiro, 2007. "Urbanization, informal sector, and development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 76-103, September.
- Strobl, Eric, 2003. "Is Education Used as a Signaling Device for Productivity in Developing Countries? Evidence from Ghana," IZA Discussion Papers 683, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Yuki, Kazuhiro, 2012. "Stereotypes, segregation, and ethnic inequality," MPRA Paper 39704, University Library of Munich, Germany.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:16982For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Ekkehart Schlicht).
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

