This paper examines the effect of shifts in the relative supply and demand of skills on the skill premiums and wage inequality in the British labour market 1972-2002. We test the Katz and Murphy (1992) hypothesis that the changes of skill premiums can be explained by their relative supply...

This paper estimates the economic returns to education in China from 1989 to 2009, using the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) dataset. We find that education returns for one additional year generally increase from 2.6% in 1989 to 7.9% in 2009. Education returns, however, may reflect...

This paper challenges the economic constraints associated with the so-called post-industrial trilemma. Following Iversen’s and Wren’s seminal 1998 paper, it has been widely accepted that differential industry-level productivity increases rule out a solidaristic structure of wages, due to the...

This paper employs industry data, derived from linking the EU LFS to productivity accounts from EU KLEMS, to examine workforce training and productivity in European Union original members states. Training activities are modelled as intangible investments by firms and cumulated to stocks so their...

This paper investigates the impact of training and education on productivity, in particular linking to a literature that emphasizes the need to reorganise production following adoption of ICT. The paper examines training at the total economy level and variation across industries, focusing...

This paper presents new data series designed to yield a more complete picture of the growth in average skill levels embedded in the EU workforce, comparing with competitor countries such as the US and China. Harmonised data from EU surveys are employed to extend coverage in existing databases to...

This paper considers evidence on the impact of ICT on demand for different types of workers, focusing in particular on the age dimension. It first examines data from EUKLEMS using regressions standard in the literature and suggests ICT may have adversely affected older workers, in particular...

This paper examines effects of the formation of physical and human capital on the growth of labour productivity, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and wages in China, incorporating the market reform factors such as ownership shifts, population policy, openness and fiscal expenditures on education....

This paper aims to investigate the cyclical changes in the wage structure of the United Kingdom over the period 1972-2002 using the General Household Survey (GHS). Wage structure of the UK shows a cyclical pattern, which may be from the different wage cyclicality of the top, middle and bottom...