Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pia/wpaper/38-2007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wage Structure, Inequality And Skill-Biased Change: Is Italy An Outlier?

Author

Listed:
  • Paolo Naticchioni
  • Andrea Ricci
  • Emiliano Rustichelli
Abstract
This paper investigates the relation between wage structure, inequality and skill-biased change in Italy between 1993 and 2004. Using a quantile decomposition analysis, we point out that changes in wage structure are mainly driven by the negative coefficients component, which represents also one of driving force of the trends of wage inequality. This evidence suggests that the changes in wage structure in Italy can hardly be explained referring to a skill-biased change explanation. Evidence that is further reinforced by a set of descriptive statistics showing that the increasing educational attainments of the workforce might have been crowded out by a stable trend in the demand for skills.

Suggested Citation

  • Paolo Naticchioni & Andrea Ricci & Emiliano Rustichelli, 2007. "Wage Structure, Inequality And Skill-Biased Change: Is Italy An Outlier?," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 38/2007, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    • Handle: RePEc:pia:wpaper:38/2007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.ec.unipg.it/quaderni/quaderno38web_001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massimiliano Bratti & Nicola Matteucci, 2005. "Is there skilled-biased technological change in Italian manufacturing? Evidence from firm-level data," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 48(1-2), pages 153-182.
    2. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    3. Martins, Pedro S. & Pereira, Pedro T., 2004. "Does education reduce wage inequality? Quantile regression evidence from 16 countries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 355-371, June.
    4. Thomas Lemieux, 2002. "Decomposing changes in wage distributions: a unified approach," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(4), pages 646-688, November.
    5. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10093 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Peter Gottschalk & Timothy M. Smeeding, 1997. "Cross-National Comparisons of Earnings and Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 633-687, June.
    7. José Mata & José A. F. Machado, 2005. "Counterfactual decomposition of changes in wage distributions using quantile regression," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 445-465.
    8. Bassett, Gilbert W. & Koenker, Roger W., 1986. "Strong Consistency of Regression Quantiles and Related Empirical Processes," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 191-201, August.
    9. Alan B. Krueger, 1993. "How Computers Have Changed the Wage Structure: Evidence from Microdata, 1984–1989," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 33-60.
    10. Melly, Blaise, 2005. "Decomposition of differences in distribution using quantile regression," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 577-590, August.
    11. Buchinsky, Moshe, 1994. "Changes in the U.S. Wage Structure 1963-1987: Application of Quantile Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 405-458, March.
    12. Bernd Fitzenberger & Claudia Kurz, 2003. "New insights on earnings trends across skill groups and industries in West Germany," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 479-514, July.
    13. Koenker, Roger & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1982. "Robust Tests for Heteroscedasticity Based on Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 43-61, January.
    14. Marco Lilla, 2005. "Disuguaglianze salariali in Italia: nuove evidenze dai microdati SHIW," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 71-102.
    15. Eve Caroli & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Skill-Biased Organizational Change? Evidence from A Panel of British and French Establishments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1449-1492.
    16. Alessia Matano & Paolo Naticchioni, 2010. "Trade and Wage Inequality: Local versus Global Comparative Advantages," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(12), pages 1757-1787, December.
    17. Paolo Naticchioni & Andrea Ricci & Emiliano Rustichelli, 2010. "Far away from a skill-biased change: falling educational wage premia in Italy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(26), pages 3383-3400.
    18. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M & Pierce, Brooks, 1993. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 410-442, June.
    19. Roger Koenker & Kevin F. Hallock, 2001. "Quantile Regression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 143-156, Fall.
    20. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    21. Omar Arias & Walter Sosa-Escudero & Kevin F. Hallock, 2001. "Individual heterogeneity in the returns to schooling: instrumental variables quantile regression using twins data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 7-40.
    22. David S. Lee, 1999. "Wage Inequality in the United States During the 1980s: Rising Dispersion or Falling Minimum Wage?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 977-1023.
    23. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2005. "Rising Wage Inequality: The Role of Composition and Prices," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2096, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    24. Bound, John & Johnson, George, 1992. "Changes in the Structure of Wages in the 1980's: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 371-392, June.
    25. Barth, Erling & Lucifora, Claudio, 2006. "Wage Dispersion, Markets and Institutions: The Effects of the Boom in Education on the Wage Structure," IZA Discussion Papers 2181, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    26. Andrea Brandolini & Piero Cipollone & Paolo Sestito, 2001. "Earnings Dispersion, Low Pay and Household Poverty in Italy, 1977-1998," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 427, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    27. Gary Burtless, 1995. "International Trade and the Rise in Earnings Inequality," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 800-816, June.
    28. Brunello, Giorgio & Miniaci, Raffaele, 1999. "The economic returns to schooling for Italian men. An evaluation based on instrumental variables1," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 509-519, November.
    29. repec:adr:anecst:y:1996:i:41-42:p:16 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 7-72, March.
    31. Pamela Giustinelli, 2004. "Quantile Regression Evidence on Italian Education Returns," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 94(6), pages 49-100, November-.
    32. Marco Manacorda, 2004. "Can the Scala Mobile Explain the Fall and Rise of Earnings Inequality in Italy? A Semiparametric Analysis, 19771993," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 585-614, July.
    33. Buchinsky, Moshe, 1995. "Estimating the asymptotic covariance matrix for quantile regression models a Monte Carlo study," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 303-338, August.
    34. Paola Casavola & Andréa Gavosto & Paolo Sestito, 1996. "Technical Progres and Wage Dispersion in Italy: Evidence from Firm's Data," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 41-42, pages 387-412.
    35. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    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. Damiani, Mirella & Pompei, Fabrizio & Ricci, Andrea, 2011. "Temporary job protection and productivity growth in EU economies," MPRA Paper 29698, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Mirella Damiani, 2010. "Labour regulation, corporate governance and varieties of capitalism," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 76/2010, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    3. Stefano Herzel & Marco Nicolosi & Cătălin Stărică, 2012. "The cost of sustainability in optimal portfolio decisions," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3-4), pages 333-349, May.
    4. Ordine, Patrizia & Rose, Giuseppe, 2011. "Inefficient self-selection into education and wage inequality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 582-597, August.
    5. Silvia Micheli, 2010. "Learning Curve and Wind Power," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 81/2010, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    6. Francesco Venturini, 2011. "Product variety, product quality, and evidence of Schumpeterian endogenous growth: a note," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 93/2011, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    7. Davide Castellani & Fabio Pieri, 2011. "Foreign Investments and Productivity Evidence from European Regions," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 83/2011, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.

    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. Paolo Naticchioni & Andrea Ricci & Emiliano Rustichelli, 2008. "Wage Inequality, Employment Structure and Skill‐biased Change in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(s1), pages 27-51, June.
    2. Paolo Naticchioni & Andrea Ricci, 2009. "Decreasing Wage Inequality in Italy: The Role of Supply and Demand for Education," Working Papers - Dipartimento di Economia 9-DEISFOL, Dipartimento di Economia, Sapienza University of Rome, revised 2009.
    3. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2005. "Trends in U. S. Wage Inequality: Re-Assessing the Revisionists," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2095, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    4. Claudia Tello & Raul Ramos & Manuel Artís, 2012. "Changes in wage structure in Mexico going beyond the mean: An analysis of differences in distribution, 1987-2008," Working Papers XREAP2012-07, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised May 2012.
    5. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    6. Azam, Mehtabul, 2012. "Changes in Wage Structure in Urban India, 1983–2004: A Quantile Regression Decomposition," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1135-1150.
    7. Stephen Machin & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Changes in Wage Inequality," CEP Reports 18, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Corrado Andini, 2022. "Tertiary education for all and wage inequality: policy insights from quantile regression," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 50(6), pages 1281-1296, November.
    9. Martinez-Sanchis, Elena & Mora, Juan & Kandemir, Ilker, 2012. "Counterfactual distributions of wages via quantile regression with endogeneity," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(11), pages 3212-3229.
    10. Paolo Naticchioni & Andrea Ricci, 2009. "Falling Educational Wage Premia in Italy," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 4, December.
    11. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    12. Gurleen Popli & Okan Yılmaz, 2017. "Educational Attainment and Wage Inequality in Turkey," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 31(1), pages 73-104, March.
    13. Rebekka Christopoulou & Theodora Kosma, 2009. "Skills and Wage Inequality in Greece: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data, 1995-2002," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 26, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    14. Jimeno, Juan F. & Lamo, Ana & Christopoulou, Rebekka, 2010. "Changes in the wage structure in EU countries," Working Paper Series 1199, European Central Bank.
    15. José Mata & José A. F. Machado, 2005. "Counterfactual decomposition of changes in wage distributions using quantile regression," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 445-465.
    16. Michael Chletsos & Stelios Roupakias, 2020. "Education and wage inequality before and during the fiscal crisis: A quantile regression analysis for Greece 2006–2016," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 1333-1364, November.
    17. Gernandt Johannes & Pfeiffer Friedhelm, 2007. "Rising Wage Inequality in Germany," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 227(4), pages 358-380, August.
    18. Saiah Lee, 2023. "Macroeconomic Conditions and Wage Inequality: Expanding and Analyzing the Worldwide Dataset," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 24(2), pages 329-362, November.
    19. Wolff, Edward N., 2002. "The impact of IT investment on income and wealth inequality in the postwar US economy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 233-251, June.
    20. Zsófia L. Bárány, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 237-274.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Educational wage premia; Human Capital; Skill Biased Change; Quantile regression; Wage Decomposition; Italy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • 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:pia:wpaper:38/2007. 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: Ubaldo Pizzoli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deperit.html .

    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.