Presentation of paper

Returns to schooling, overeducation and wage inequality: new evidence

Speaker: 

Raul Ramos - AQR IREA - University of Barcelona

Abstract

Recent international research shows that wage inequality is higher among more educated individuals. This has been termed as the “inequality increasing effect of education”. This result is, in fact, counterintuitive as policies aimed to increase the educational level of the population are expected to reduce earnings equality as they increases the proportion of high wage workers. A potential explanation of this result could be related to skill mismatches. A fraction of educated workers do jobs that require lower qualification levels than the ones they have, they will earn less that they causing wage differences between more educated people increases. This paper uses data from three waves of the Spanish Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) to analyze the evolution of wage inequality in Spain between 1995 and 2006, and test the potential role of overeducation to explain the observed trends.

For more information: crenos@unica.it

Tel. +39 070 6756414    Fax +39 070 6756402