IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jqecon/v16y2018i2d10.1007_s40953-017-0083-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Skill Formation, Public Expenditure on Education and Wage Inequality: Theory and Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Anindya Biswas

    (Spring Hill College)

  • Sarbajit Chaudhuri

    (University of Calcutta)

Abstract

As per the conventional wisdom there should be provision for public assistance for skills acquirement for improving relative wage inequality in the future. Empirical observations on some prominent small OECD countries, however, indicate that the relationship between wage inequality and public spending on education is not necessarily unambiguous. A theoretical underpinning of this empirical observation has been provided in this study in terms of a $$2\times 3$$ 2 × 3 general equilibrium model for a small open economy. Later, the correctness of the theoretical framework and its result have been empirically examined with the help of an unbalanced panel dataset of 13 small developed countries from 2000 to 2011. This empirical analysis supports the main theoretical result that the relationship between wage inequality and public expenditure could indeed be ambiguous. This finding questions the desirability of providing subsidy on education at least from the perspective of reduction in earnings inequality among the different sections of the working population.

Suggested Citation

  • Anindya Biswas & Sarbajit Chaudhuri, 2018. "Skill Formation, Public Expenditure on Education and Wage Inequality: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 16(2), pages 553-571, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jqecon:v:16:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s40953-017-0083-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s40953-017-0083-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40953-017-0083-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40953-017-0083-6?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wood, Adrian, 1997. "Openness and Wage Inequality in Developing Countries: The Latin American Challenge to East Asian Conventional Wisdom," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 11(1), pages 33-57, January.
    2. Feenstra, Robert C. & Hanson, Gordon H., 1997. "Foreign direct investment and relative wages: Evidence from Mexico's maquiladoras," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-4), pages 371-393, May.
    3. Beyer, Harald & Rojas, Patricio & Vergara, Rodrigo, 1999. "Trade liberalization and wage inequality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 103-123, June.
    4. Harrison, Ann & Hanson, Gordon, 1999. "Who gains from trade reform? Some remaining puzzles," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 125-154, June.
    5. Nathalie Chusseau & Michel Dumont, 2012. "Growing Income Inequalities in Advanced," Working Papers hal-00993359, HAL.
    6. Azizur Rahman Khan, 1998. "The Impact of Globalization on South Asia," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: A. S. Bhalla (ed.), Globalization, Growth and Marginalization, chapter 4, pages 103-124, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Nathalie Chusseau & Michel Dumont, 2013. "Growing Income Inequalities in Advanced Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Joël Hellier & Nathalie Chusseau (ed.), Growing Income Inequalities, chapter 1, pages 13-47, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. World Bank, 2014. "World Development Indicators 2014," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 18237, December.
    9. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Mukhopadhyay, Ujjaini, 2009. "Revisiting the Informal Sector: A General Equilibrium Approach," MPRA Paper 52135, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Brown, Phillip & Green, Andy & Lauder, Hugh, 2001. "High Skills: Globalization, Competitiveness, and Skill Formation," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199244201.
    11. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit, 2014. "Does Public Assistance for Skills Formation Necessarily Improve Wage Inequality in the Future?," MPRA Paper 57788, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    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. Sugata Marjit & Rashmi Ahuja & Abhilasha Pandey, 2021. "Education, Lack of Complementary Investment and Underemployment In an Open Economy," CESifo Working Paper Series 9278, CESifo.
    2. Gilbert Nartea & Jacqueline Hernandez, 2020. "Government Size, the Composition of Public Spending and Economic Growth in Netherland," Journal of Accounting, Business and Finance Research, Scientific Publishing Institute, vol. 9(2), pages 82-89.

    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. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Biswas, Anindya, 2015. "Public Subsidy on Education and Welfare in Small OECD Countries: A Theoretical and Empirical Reconciliation," MPRA Paper 61593, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit, 2014. "Public Subsidy on Education, Welfare, and Wage Inequality in a Small Open Developed Economy: A Two-period Analysis," MPRA Paper 60330, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit, 2014. "Does Public Assistance for Skills Formation Necessarily Improve Wage Inequality in the Future?," MPRA Paper 57788, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Yabuuchi, Shigemi, 2007. "Economic liberalization and wage inequality in the presence of labour market imperfection," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 592-603.
    5. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Ghosh, Arnab & Banerjee, Dibyendu, 2018. "Can public subsidy on education necessarily improve wage inequality?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 165-177.
    6. Timothy Halliday & Daniel Lederman & Raymond Robertson, 2018. "Tracking wage inequality trends with prices and different trade models: evidence from Mexico," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 154(1), pages 47-73, February.
    7. Giordano, Paolo & Li, Kun, 2012. "An Updated Assessment of the Trade and Poverty Nexus in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4209, Inter-American Development Bank.
    8. Gupta, Manash Ranjan & Dutta, Priya Brata, 2012. "Skilled–unskilled wage inequality, product variety, public input and increasing returns: A static general equilibrium analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 502-513.
    9. Archanun Kohpaiboon & Juthatip Jongwanich, . "Global Production Sharing and Wage Premium: Evidence from Thai Manufacturing," Chapters, in: Chine Hee HAHN & Dionisius Narjoko (ed.), Impact of Globalization on Labor Market, chapter 6, pages 134-163, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    10. Yoshimichi Murakami, 2018. "Globalization and Income Inequality in Latin America: A Review of Theoretical Developments and Recent Evidence," Discussion Paper Series DP2018-16, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Aug 2018.
    11. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Mukhopadhyay, Ujjaini, 2009. "Revisiting the Informal Sector: A General Equilibrium Approach," MPRA Paper 52135, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Nathalie Chusseau & Joël Hellier, 2013. "Inequality in Emerging Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Joël Hellier & Nathalie Chusseau (ed.), Growing Income Inequalities, chapter 2, pages 48-75, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Gupta, Manash Ranjan & Dutta, Priya Brata, 2010. "Skilled-unskilled wage inequality, nontraded good and endogenous supply of skilled labour: A theoretical analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 923-934, September.
    14. Gupta, Manash Ranjan & Dutta, Priya Brata, 2010. "Skilled-unskilled wage inequality: A general equilibrium analysis," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 247-263, December.
    15. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Nina Pavcnik, 2007. "Distributional Effects of Globalization in Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(1), pages 39-82, March.
    16. Thierry Verdier, 2005. "Intégration commerciale « socialement responsable » : une approche en termes d'économie politique," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 13(4), pages 55-121.
    17. Gupta, Manash Ranjan & Dutta, Priya Brata, 2011. "Skilled-unskilled wage inequality and unemployment: A general equilibrium analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 1977-1983, July.
    18. Bin Xu & Wei Li, 2008. "Trade, technology, and China's rising skill demand1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(1), pages 59-84, January.
    19. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12528 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Paolo Giordano & Kun Li, 2012. "An Updated Assessment of the Trade and Poverty Nexus in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 79119, Inter-American Development Bank.
    21. Manash Ranjan Gupta & Priya Brata Dutta, 2018. "Skilled-unskilled wage inequality and structural transformation in a dual economy," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 311-332, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Skill formation; Wage inequality; Education subsidy; General equilibrium; Small OECD country; Panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D58 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • 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:spr:jqecon:v:16:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s40953-017-0083-6. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.