Educational upgrading and returns to skills in Latin America: Evidence from a supply-demand framework

Artikel

This paper documents the evolution of wage differentials and the supply of workers by educational level for sixteen Latin American countries over the period 1991-2013. We find a pattern of rather constant rise in the relative supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers over the period. Whereas the returns to secondary education fell over time, in contrast, the returns to tertiary education display a remarkable changing pattern common to almost all economies: significant increase in the 1990s, strong fall in the 2000s, and a deceleration of that fall in the 2010s. We conclude that supply-side factors seem to have limited explanatory power relative to demand-side factors in accounting for changes in the wage gap between workers with tertiary education and the rest.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: Latin American Economic Review ; ISSN: 2196-436X ; Volume: 28 ; Year: 2019 ; Issue: 1 ; Pages: 1-20 ; Heidelberg: Springer

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Labor Economics: General
• Subject: Returns to skills ; Latin America ; Inequality ; Education

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Acosta, Pablo ; Cruces, Guillermo ; Galiani, Sebastián ; Gasparini, Leonardo
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Springer
• (where): Heidelberg
• (when): 2019

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.1186/s40503-019-0080-6
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/259449
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET