Whodunnit? Changes in the relative demand for unskilled and skilled labor

Arbeitspapier

The secular shift in labor demand from unskilled to skilled labor is explained within a model that is solved numerically. There are three branches producing a basic good, a differentiated luxury good, and an intermediate service. Production is more skill-intensive in the luxury good and the service branch. Consumption expenditure shifts towards the luxury good with rising income. In this setting, both unskilled-specific and neutral technical change lead to a rise in the relative wage of the skilled. Increasing unemployment results only for a restrictive assumption about labor market rigidities.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Year: 1999 ; Kiel: Institut für Weltwirtschaft (IfW)

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
• Subject: Skill-biased technical change ; wages ; unemployment ; Arbeitsnachfrage ; Qualifikation ; Humankapital ; Technischer Fortschritt ; Mehr-Sektoren-Modell ; Lohnstruktur ; Arbeitsmarktflexibilisierung ; Theorie ; OECD-Staaten

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Schimmelpfennig, Axel
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Kiel Institute of World Economics (IfW) ; ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
• (where): Kiel
• (when): 1999

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/47027
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET