Manacorda, Marco; (2000) An Empirical Analysis of Changes in the Structure of Wages and Employment in OECD Countries. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This work uses a variety of micro and macro data sets in order to analyse changes in the wage and employment structures in a number of OECD countries over the 1970s and 1980s. I find evidence of a generalised rise in the relative demand for skilled labour across all countries analysed. The US (in the 1980s) and the UK, however, are the only two countries where a deceleration in the relative supply of skilled labour produced an increased imbalance between the demand and the supply of skills. Such an increased imbalance is able to explain the rise in returns to skills which occurred over the 1980s. As continental Europe is concerned, an analysis of the Italian labour market illustrates that the rising trend in the demand for skills was counteracted by institutional rigidities, which kept the wage structure relatively unchanged. The analysis suggests that wage rigidities and shifts in demand are jointly responsible for the rapid shift towards skilled employment which occurred in continental Europe during the 1980s.

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