The College Wage Premium and the Expansion of Higher Education in the UK*

This paper reports estimates of the UK “college premium” for young graduates across successive cohorts from large cross‐section datasets for the UK pooled from 1994 to 2006—a period when the higher education participation rate increased dramatically. The growth in relative labour demand suggests that graduate supply considerably outstripped demand which ought to imply a fall in the premium. We find no significant fall for men and even a large, but insignificant, rise for women. Quantile regression results reveal a fall in the premium only for men in the bottom quartile of the distribution of unobserved skills.     

Education expansion and decline in cohort quality in Brazil: 1995–2013

This letter explores whether the expansion of tertiary education in Brazil has caused any significant decline in the average quality of the recent cohorts with higher share of tertiary education. Using Brazil National Household Survey 1995–2013 data, we find evidence shows that the recent cohorts earn a relatively smaller tertiary premium after controlling everything else that also affect the tertiary premium, which indicates the decline in average quality of the recent college graduates.     

A MACROECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE ON SKILL SHORTAGES AND THE SKILL PREMIUM IN NEW ZEALAND*

Qualification and occupation‐based measures of skilled labour are constructed to explain the skill premium – the wage of skilled labour relative to unskilled labour in New Zealand. The data exhibit a more rapid growth in the supply of skilled labour than the skill premium, and a very large increase in the real minimum wage over the period from 1986 to 2005. We estimate the rate of increase in the relative demand for skills and the elasticity of substitution. The data are consistent with skill shortages and a skill‐bias technical change. We examine the effects of the minimum wage, capital complementarity, and the exchange rate on the skill premium. We also test whether the demand for skills and the elasticity of substitution varied across industries and over time.     

Another Nail in the Coffin? Or Can the Trade Based Explanation of Changing Skill Structures Be Resurrected?

The skill structure of wages and employment has altered markedly in recent years. In some countries (most notably the UK and the US) wage inequality has risen sharply and in most countries relative demand has shifted unfavourably against the less skilled. In this paper we reassess the evidence that rising international competition from developing countries is the crucial factor underpinning these changes. Our results, based on newly constructed internationally comparable industry data, find little support for the predictions of the basic Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) trade model.
JEL classification: J 31; F 14     

Patterns of Skill Premia

This paper develops a model to analyse how skill premia differ over time and across countries, and uses this model to study the impact of international trade on wage inequality. Skill premia are determined by technology, the relative supply of skills, and trade. Technology is itself endogenous, and responds to profit incentives. An increase in the relative supply of skills, holding technology constant, reduces the skill premium. But an increase in the supply of skills over time also induces a change in technology, increasing the demand for skills. The most important result of the paper is that increased international trade induces skill-biased technical change. As a result, trade opening can cause a rise in inequality both in the U.S. and the less developed countries, and thanks to the induced skill-biased technical change, this can happen without a rise in the relative prices of skill-intensive goods in the U.S., which is the usual intervening mechanism in the standard trade models.     

The Rising College Premium in the Eighties: Return to College or Return to Unobserved Ability?

The changes in the distribution of earnings during the 1980s have been studied extensively. The two most striking characteristics of the decade are (a) a large increase in the college/high school wage gap, and (b) a substantial rise in the variance of wage residuals. While this second phenomenon is typically implicitly attributed to an increase in the demand for unobserved skill, most work in this area fails to acknowledge that this same increase in demand for unobserved skill could drive the evolution of the measured college premium. In its simplest form, if higher ability individuals are more likely to attend college, then the increase in the college wage premium may be due to a increase in the relative demand for high ability workers rather than an increase in the demand for skills accumulated in college. This paper develops and estimates a dynamic programming selection model in order to investigate the plausibility of this explanation. The results are highly suggestive that an increase in the demand for unobserved ability could play a major role in the growing college premium.     

Segregating genetically modified and nongenetically modified corn in a marketing channel

The adoption of GM corn in the United States depends on many factors including segregation costs, which have minor impacts on aggregate welfare. Because the demand for nonGM corn is small relative to its supply, no premium for nonGM corn can be generated in excess of the segregation costs. An outward shift in the supply of corn resulting from the adoption of GM varieties has a greater impact on aggregate welfare than do the segregation costs required to satisfy the GM-free demand. A 10% increase in the aggregate supply of GM corn increases aggregate welfare by more than US $250 million. However, nonadopters of GM corn lose while adopters can gain or lose depending on the nature of the aggregate demand curve for US corn.     

Accounting for Growth in the Australian Wine Industry, 1987 to 2003

A computable general equilibrium model of the Australian economy is used to account for the dramatic growth in Australia's wine industry between 1987 and 1999, and to project grape and wine volumes and prices to 2003. Export demand growth has made a major contribution to total output growth in premium wines, and accounts for most of the increase in the producer price of premium red wine. Domestic consumer preferences have shifted, mainly towards premium red wine, but there is also some evidence of growing demand for premium white wine since the mid 1990s. From the perspective of producers, productivity growth, while being less important than growth in domestic demand, appears to have more than offset the negative effects on suppliers of wine consumer tax increases. From the domestic consumers' perspective, however, tax hikes have raised retail prices much more than productivity gains have lowered them. The high and sustained levels of profitability resulting from export demand growth have led to a massive supply response in Australia. Even so, by 2003 Australian wine output will still be less than 5 per cent of global production.     

Economic Incentives and the Demand for Higher Education

To what extent do economic incentives affect the demand for higher education? This question is addressed by means of a time-series analysis of the demand for university education in Sweden. The bulk of the variation in the fraction of qualified individuals enrolled at universities is attributed to fluctuations in the university wage premium. Furthermore, relative employment prospects for university graduates and variations in the generosity of the study allowance scheme appear to be of importance for the enrollment decision.     

Monopolistic competition and the stability of industrial equilibrium

We consider a two-sector economy, consisting of the differentiated-goods and the homogeneous-goods industries, where the former is monopolistically competitive with scale-economies. We show that the Chamberlinian tangency solution is unstable when the supply side is characterized by the Heckscher-Ohlin two-factor model.     

Disentangling supply and demand shifts: the impacts on world salmon price

To understand price changes, one must determine the relative impact of supply and demand shifts on price. Conditional on predetermined supply and demand elasticities, we retrieve yearly shifts in regional supply and demand. The relative impact on price from each supply and demand shift is determined through an equilibrium displacement model (EDM). This procedure is applied on a yearly basis for the world salmon market in the period 2002 to 2011. The results indicate a large variation in demand and supply growth both over time and between regions. While average annual price impacts from supply or demand shifts from most regions are not statistically significant, price impacts from supply or demand shifts for specific periods are detected in all but one region. This indicates that the use of smooth trend indicators is likely to be inappropriate for measuring supply and demand shifts and their impacts on price. The procedure presented in this article can be a useful instrument for determining the relative impacts of supply and demand shifts on price in any market with unstable price behaviour.     

中国通用航空产业补贴效率及最优补贴制度研究—以低空飞行服务业为例

补贴效率是检验补贴制度设计合理性、运行有效性的核心标准。研究发现,我国通用航空飞行服务业补贴制度存在相对供给挤占、暂时性收益陷阱、恶性亏损经营和资金体内循环4类突出的效率损失及福利侵蚀问题,补贴对通航运营企业经营效益提升无显著影响。立足补贴效率受损形式并顺应有效供给和需求严重不足的产业发展矛盾,以社会福利和外部性为核心,从结构重塑、机制优化两个维度出发,全面建立我国通用航空飞行服务业补贴制度并探讨最优补贴边界,最大化补贴效益。首先,以需求二维影响机制为理论支撑,搭建“需求侧保险费率补贴制度+供给端弹性补贴计划”的双侧补贴模式,减缓有效供需规模偏小对企业短期非理性补贴行为的过度激化。其次,从调整补贴标准、丰富补贴层次、规范补贴流程、定位补贴属性4个方面着手深度优化供给侧补贴计划,并以应用事后补贴安排、筹建再保险补贴基金的形式细化需求侧补贴内容,以期最大程度减少补贴效率损耗对预期补贴福利的影响。     

产业融合与融合产品的需求增长--基于修正的Bass模型的分析

产业融合形成的创新性产品所带来的需求增长包含了两个过程:一是对产业融合的原有产业市场需求的替代,二是创造出原有市场之外的新的市场需求。本文在对Bass及相关模型的假设条件作出适当修正的基础上,建立了能够方便、准确地对融合产品的需求增长状况进行分析和估计的产业融合需求增长模型。基于这一模型,本文对融合产品的需求替代和创新、融合产品的需求增长估计以及融合产品的需求增长趋势进行了经验验证和预测。     

Changes in the Finnish Wage Structure: Will Demand and Supply Do?

This study addresses changes in the wage structure in Finland between 1977 and 1995, and provides a simple explanation based on the demand for and supply of skills. The single index model of Card and Lemieux (1996) is augmented by incorporating changes in the supply of skills. The augmented model adequately accounts for the changes in relative wages between groups of different education and experience, but does not capture the changes in the within-group distribution.
JEL classification : J 31     

Current market conditions for veterinary services in the U.S

The veterinary industry has been plagued by low growth in income, yet flourished in growth of new veterinarians. By using a labour-/work-hour approach that allows for proper matching of the data, we develop a supply and demand model of companion animal services in the veterinary medicine profession. We use data from two unique sources that allow demand estimation by companion animal type and lets supply vary by practice type. The results here suggest that low income growth, relative to doctors and dentists, may be from allowing supply to outpace demand for veterinary services.     

The Shrinking Earnings Premium for University Graduates in Hong Kong: The Effect of Quantity or Quality?

In 1989, the Hong Kong government embarked on a program to increase the provision of first-year first-degree places. The expansion of tertiary education represents a large and exogenous increase in the supply of university graduates to the territory. This article measures the labor market effects of the expansion program by studying the changes in earnings premium for university graduates. Two alternative hypotheses—crowding and quality effects—are identified to explain why the earnings premium shrank. The results support the view that the declining quality of university graduates is the prime candidate for the declining earnings premium. (JEL J31 , I28 , J18 )     

"二孩政策"与学区房溢价——基于人口政策变化的政策评价分析

我国人口生育政策的调整是政府在我国经济进入中高速发展阶段之后做出的重大决策,对社会经济各个方面会产生重要影响.文章着眼于政策调整、家庭规划和政府公共产品需求,以上海市住房数据为基础,分析了我国"二孩政策"对现阶段学区房价格的影响.文章以特征回归模型为基础,讨论了人口政策变化对学区房价格的影响.研究发现,在人口新政出台后,与临近的普通住房相比,学区房的相对溢价程度更高.文章进一步采用固定边界法,发现优质学区房的溢价涨幅(约为8.6%-11.8%)高于普通学区房(约为2.49%-3.97%),充分说明在人口政策调整后,我国部分家庭对优质教育更加渴望.文章采用匹配回归进行了稳健性检验,仍支持上述研究结论.     

Teacher sorting, teacher quality, and student composition

Using panel data for Norwegian schools, we establish a two-equation supply and demand model for teachers with approved education. Taking into account nationally determined teacher pay and a strict teacher appointment rule, the data enable us to separately estimate supply and demand functions for certified teachers. The results clearly indicate that the student body composition, and in particular students belonging to ethnic minorities, influences both teacher supply and teacher demand. The implied negative relationship between excess demand for certified teachers and the share of minority students is likely to be important for teacher quality.     

Changing wage structure and education in Vietnam, 1992–98

This paper examines the changes in relative earnings of workers with different education levels in Vietnam. Using a simple demand‐and‐supply framework developed by Katz and Murphy (1992 ), it was found that an increase in the relative demand for better‐educated male workers in particular appears to play an important role in explaining the earnings differentials between workers of different education groups. Education reform to better suit the needs of the post‐reform emerging market, on‐the‐job training for workers and equal access to education are some policy options that hold the key to reducing wage inequality between different education groups.     

THE HECKSCHER-OHLIN THEOREM WITH ENDOGENOUS LABOUR SUPPLY*

This note demonstrates that the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem, stated in terms of factor endowment ratios, is valid independent of the slope of the labour supply curve.